Sweden’s election has produced a razor-thin contest between the left and right, with the center-left bloc holding a narrow lead but no clear path yet to forming a government.
The Social Democrats emerged as the largest party, led by former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, while Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s Moderates made a strong recovery. The Sweden Democrats, however, lost significant support compared with the 2022 election, complicating the right-wing coalition’s efforts to retain power.
With the final count still incomplete, projections put the center-left bloc on 176 seats in the 349-member Riksdag, compared with 173 for the center-right. Earlier projections had the two blocs separated by just one or two seats.
The final result is not expected until Wednesday, when ballots cast abroad have been fully counted.
The closeness of the race was evident throughout election night. When polls closed at 8 p.m., an exit poll put Andersson’s Social Democrats at around 28.5 percent, prompting celebrations among supporters gathered at the party’s election-night event in Stockholm. The initial figures appeared to show a weak performance by both the governing Moderates and the Sweden Democrats.
Less than an hour later, however, the mood had changed. Early projections put the Social Democrats at roughly 27 percent, while the Moderates climbed to around 20 percent. The Sweden Democrats also performed better than suggested by the exit poll.
By 10 p.m., the center-left bloc had regained the lead, but only by a single seat. Sweden’s public broadcaster later estimated that the difference between the two blocs amounted to around 20,000 votes.
Andersson’s position is complicated by the fact that she has deliberately kept her options open on the formation of a new government.
The Social Democrats have support from the Left Party, the Greens and the Centre Party, which together give the center-left a potential parliamentary majority. But Andersson has not committed herself to a formal governing coalition with those parties.
The center-right, by contrast, enters the negotiations with a more clearly defined alliance.
A stronger right-wing pact
Kristersson’s center-right bloc is built around the Tidö agreement, named after the castle where it was negotiated in 2022. The alliance brings together the Moderates, the Sweden Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals.
The Moderates are projected to win 19.8 percent, followed by the Sweden Democrats at 17.7 percent. The Christian Democrats are on 6.3 percent, while the Liberals narrowly clear the parliamentary threshold with 5.4 percent.
The Liberals’ performance could prove crucial. The party had previously rejected the idea of supporting a government involving the Sweden Democrats, which it considered too extreme, and had indicated that it could instead work with the left.
That position changed during the campaign.
In March, Liberal leader Simona Mohamsson reached out privately to Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson and later publicly embraced him. Mohamsson, whose father is Palestinian and mother Lebanese, has herself faced criticism from the Sweden Democrats, which has long promoted a restrictive vision of Swedish national identity.
Mohamsson had reportedly indicated that she would resign if her party rejected cooperation with the Sweden Democrats.
The Liberals’ decision to remain within the right-wing camp could therefore become decisive if the final numbers leave the two blocs deadlocked.
Sweden Democrats lose ground
The election has also raised fresh questions about the political standing of the Sweden Democrats.
For the first time, the party entered an election as a potential member of government. Kristersson had said that, if the right wins, he would bring the Sweden Democrats into government rather than relying solely on their parliamentary support.
Yet the party’s result was weaker than in 2022, when it won 20.5 percent of the vote.
The Sweden Democrats initially appeared to be the third-largest party in exit polls, then moved into second place in early projections before falling back again. The latest figures put them at around 17.7 percent — a decline of nearly three percentage points.
That raises a difficult question for the party and its leader Åkesson: does the result represent a breakthrough, because the Sweden Democrats are now closer than ever to entering government, or a setback because their electoral support has declined?
For the center-left, meanwhile, the result is also far from an outright victory. The Social Democrats have remained the largest party, but their projected result is weaker than in 2022.
The outcome has therefore left both political blocs with reasons to claim momentum — and with difficult negotiations ahead.
Until the overseas ballots are counted and the final distribution of seats is confirmed, Sweden faces the prospect of a prolonged struggle to determine who can assemble a governing majority.
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