Swedes warm to sociable Sahlin

Mona Sahlin would be a good woman to have at a party but Fredrik Reinfeldt is better equipped to run the country. A new Skop survey has revealed that 54 percent of Swedes would prefer to have Social Democrat leader Sahlin at their table than Prime Minister Reinfeldt.

Published: 7 June 2007 16:25 CEST

But 56 percent view the Moderate Party leader as a more suitable head of government.

Mona Sahlin has emerged as a considerably more welcome table guest than her predecessor as party leader, Göran Persson.

In the final days of Persson’s reign, 65 percent of respondents said that they would prefer to have Reinfeldt sitting at their table.

Sahlin has also begun to to close the competence gap. When she took over as party leader in March, Sahlin trailed Reinfeldt by 26 percentage points in terms of their respective ability to lead a government. She has now whittled Reinfeldt’s lead down to twelve percentage points.

According to Skop, a total of 1,100 people between the ages of 18 and 84 were interviewed for the survey between April 23rd and May 22nd.