Election of the Weekend: Sweden
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On Sunday, Swedish voters will elect a new Rikstag. 310 members will be elected via open list PR, across 29 constituencies with between 2-40 seats. Thresholds are 12% in-constituency, 4% nationally. An additional 39 levelling seats will be awarded, to ensure proportionality among parties that clear 4% nationally.
Following the 2022 election, Sweden has been governed by a right-wing coalition of three parties: the Moderates, Liberals, and Social Democrats. But they didn’t have the votes, so they entered into a confidence and supply agreement with the Sweden Democrats, who are Sweden’s “illiberal, far right, anti-immigrant, troubling ties to Russia” party, as close as they’ve ever come to being part of a government. In this election, though, Moderate PM Ulf Kristersson has pledged to make the Sweden Democrats full coalition members, with cabinet posts, should the right wing bloc be returned to power.
The Kristersson government has pointed to a significant decline in gun violence associated with Sweden’s gang problem as an importat accomplishment of their government, as it peaked at pretty high (not just high-for-Sweden) rates around the time they assumed office in 2022. They’ve also presided over a significant reduction in immigration, reducing asylum applications as well as tightening family immigration and increasing work permit requirements. He also successfully joined NATO, which apparently has been part of the campaign although all major parties, including the Social Democrats, who initiated the application prior to losing power in 2022, supported it. Economic performance is perhaps the weakest major resume item for Kristersson, though he’s emphasizing recently declining inflation, his coalition is clearly somewhat vulnerable here against the global trend of anti-incumbent politics on cost-of-living issues.
The Social Democrats, hoping to return to power, have adjusted to some of the grim new realities of Swedish politics. They’ve moved significantly in the restrictionist direction on immigration. One Crime, they’ve been running on a smarter approach to the gang problem, in particular a proposed “mafia law” that would (they claim) increase the ability of police and prosecutors to move up the ladder from teenage shooters to actual gang leaders.
The left bloc, led by the Social Democrats, have held a modest polling lead throughout the campaign but it’s been slowly shrinking in the final weeks and days of the campaign. Polling suggests a left bloc lead of ~1-3%. Should the right bloc retain power, the relative strength of the Swedish Democrats becomes pretty important; as they may actually finish ahead of the Moderates and be the second largest party in the Rikstag. While there is a pre-election agreement between the relevant parties that Kristersson would remain PM even if SD finishes ahead of his Moderate Party, there are many unanswered questions about how much the other coalition partners would let SD dictate government policy. An important difference remains on immigration — the government or the last four years reduced new immigration a great deal, and did increase deportations somewhat, there was no significant effort to encourage or compel anyone with legal status to leave. SD absolutely wants to change that. Also worth watching is the Liberal party’s performance. They’re polling not too far above the 4% threshold, a modest polling error in the right direction could mean they could fail to qualify for levelling seats. This could be good news as it would reduce the right’s seat share relative to their vote share. It could also be bad news, in the sense that they’re the least anti-immigration party in the right bloc, and reducing/eliminating their influence could be good for the Sweden Democrats’ influence over government policy, should the right still manage to win.