Swedish left beats far-right as Liberals avoid catastrophe

3 months ago 17

The Swedish Greens have unexpectedly come out ahead of the Sweden Democrats (SD, ECR), and the ruling Liberals have narrowly avoided being thrown out of the European Parliament, according to provisional results published by the Swedish government.

In the first provisional results published by the Swedish electoral authorities, the Green Party obtained 13.6% of the vote, putting it ahead of the ECR’s Sweden Democrats, which got 13.4%, less than in the last EU elections.

The Left Party, on the other hand, made by far the biggest gains of any party, according to the electoral authority’s figures, winning 11% – 4.2 percentage points more than in the last election and gaining a new seat.

Lead candidate Jonas Sjöstedt called his party the winner of the night.

“It’s a fantastic red-green election. If it had been a general election, we would have swept the board with the ruling coalition parties,” he told national broadcaster SVT.

The left would be a counterweight to the growing far right in Europe, he added.

The European election campaign in Sweden has been dominated by a far-right troll factory scandal linked to the SD after Swedish broadcaster TV4 revealed earlier this month that the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD, ECR) had used numerous anonymous accounts to spread social media content favourable to its views, sometimes at the expense of its coalition allies.

The scandal has largely contributed to the party’s fall in the polls and its mediocre results.

Meanwhile, the Liberals, with 4.2% of the vote, have the lowest representation of any party in Sweden’s parliament, according to the poll, even though this means they will retain their MEP by hovering above the 4% mark.

The Social Democrats confirmed their position as Sweden’s largest party with 25.1%. However, if the result remains the same, it will be the party’s worst EU election result in 33 years.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s Moderates (EPP) came in second with 17.3%.

(Charles Szumski | Euractiv.com)