The far-right Sweden Democrats party was the big winner in the country’s election on Sunday, increasing its share of the vote by two to three percentage points and becoming the second largest party, but the overall result was too close to call as counting continued.
With 95% of votes counted, the rightwing bloc had 49.7% of the vote, which would give it a majority of one seat in parliament over the incumbent leftwing bloc.
Exit polls on Sunday night at first suggested a narrow victory for the Social Democrats and their centre-left allies. But as the votes were counted the tally swung towards the right.
A conclusive result may not be known until votes from Swedes living abroad are counted in the middle of the week, while the closeness of the race may yet complicate the formation of a working government.
The leader of the Sweden Democrats said early on Monday that the rightwing bloc was likely heading for victory. “Right now it looks like there will be a change of power,” Jimmie Åkesson said in a speech to party members.
The incumbent Social Democrat prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, told cheering supporters on Sunday night: “We’re not going to have a final result tonight”, Andersson, 55, called on Swedes to “have patience” and “let democracy run its course”.
The prospect that the far-right Sweden Democrats, who appeared to take more than 20% of the poll, may for the first time achieve direct influence over government policy marks a seismic shift in a country far better known for its liberal traditions.
The SD emerged from Sweden’s neo-Nazi movement in the mid-1990s and still struggles to shake off accusations of extremism. It was treated as a pariah by other parties, but three years ago, the centre-right Moderate party embraced cooperation with the far right.
The SD has increased its vote at each of the past nine general elections. Its leaders are demanding ministerial office, but the other three parties in the bloc have said they will not invite the party into government itself. However, the SD’s position as the largest party on the right places them in a strong position.
“The SD is currently by far the biggest party in the world with Nazi roots,” said Tobias Hübinette, lecturer in intercultural studies at Karlstad University and a leading anti-racist.
“Even if the party officially condemns its own race ideological roots, this background is today still present in the sense that the SD is still … seeing itself as the only political force that can save the native white Swedish majority population.”
Åkesson told a crowd of cheering supporters on Sunday evening: “Our goal is to sit in government. Our goal is a majority government. It’s looking pretty damn good now.”
The party secretary, Richard Jomshof, told public television SVT he “didn’t believe” other parties would be able to freeze out the Sweden Democrats again and expected to have a strong influence on the country’s politics. “We are so big now … it is clear we should have a spot on parliamentary committees,” he said.
He said the party had “a chance to be an active part of a government that would move politics in a completely different direction”.
At the height of the campaign, the SD billed a metro train decorated in its electoral colours as the “repatriation express”. “Welcome aboard with a one-way ticket. Next stop, Kabul,” tweeted the party’s legal spokesperson, highlighting the SD’s demand to remove non-European immigrants.
The election has revealed Sweden to be a nation deeply ill at ease with immigration, with the SD able to exploit fears over violent crime. Voter concerns such as energy price rises, failing schools and long queues for healthcare were drowned out by a relentless focus on immigration and crime.
The campaign was punctuated by further incidents of gang violence, the prevalence of which during the past five years – and the failure of government and the police to prevent them – has helped the SD to cement support for its central message that immigration is to blame.
Two weeks ago, a woman and her five-year-old child were injured after being caught in crossfire in Eskilstuna, west of Stockholm. In Malmö a week earlier, a 15-year-old boy shot dead a gang leader in a shopping mall. The number of fatal shootings rose sharply to 34 in the first six months of this year, up from 20 in the same period of 2021.
Party leaders on both left and right linked the rise in violent crime with large-scale immigration, which has led to high levels of segregation along ethnic lines in the housing and jobs markets. In the space of a few decades, Sweden has become one of the most multicultural societies in Europe, with more than a third of the population having been born abroad or having a parent who was born abroad. About 30% of children do not have Swedish as their mother tongue, rising to 45% in parts of the cities.
