Daily Times

Swedes voted in legislative elections Sunday that will either pave the way for an unprecedented right-wing government supported by the far right or a third straight mandate for the ruling Social Democrats. Opinion polls have predicted a close race with a razor-thin lead for Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democrats and the left bloc, following a campaign dominated by rising gang shootings and soaring electricity prices.

Polling stations were to close at 8:00 pm (1800 GMT), with final results due around midnight. At a voting station set up in Stockholm’s Central Station, 34-year-old IT worker Erwin Marklund said he was concerned about the rise of the far right and had voted for the small Left Party.

“It’s important to not get the far right into the system”, he told AFP. The right-wing bloc has never before agreed to cooperate with the nationalist and anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, long treated as “pariahs” by other political parties. The far right has leapt to second place in opinion polls behind the Social Democrats in the final weeks of the campaign, credited with around a fifth of votes. Their surge — overtaking the traditional leaders of the right-wing bloc, the conservative Moderates — was attributed to an election race focused on issues close to their voters, including crime, segregation and the integration of immigrants. Prime Minister Andersson, 55, hopes however to hang onto power with the support of the small Left, Centre and Green parties. “It’s going to be very, very close”, she told reporters as she cast her ballot in the Stockholm suburb of Nacka on Sunday.