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ELECTION

Alliance coalition passes opposition: poll

The governing Alliance has overtaken the opposition "red-greens" in a new poll by Synovate published on Friday.

The May poll is the first time a Synovate poll has shown the centre-right coalition ahead since the election 2006. All four government parties showed an increase on Synovate’s April poll while all three opposition parties lost support over the month.

The four Alliance parties polled a total of 48.3 percent, a climb of 5.2 percentage points on April. The opposition received the backing of 46.5 percent of the electorate, a drop of 4.7 points. The 1.8 percent margin was too small to be considered statistically significant.

Fredrik Reinfeldt’s Moderates lead the rally climbing to 31.8 percent, a statistically significant increase of 3 percentage points, while the Social Democrats polled 32.5 percent, a fall of 2.6 points and their worst showing in five years.

The poll displays bloc figures very close to those recorded at the 2006 general election and come after a month of instability in global stock markets and prevailing concerns that the economic recovery will be derailed as a result of the state debt crisis affecting several eurozone countries.

The month has also however seen significant media coverage of “red-green” policy initiatives as the coalition presents its alternative to the Alliance before the September election campaign gathers pace in the late summer.

“The red-green policies have been clarified. This has led to a mobilization among middle-class voters behind their parties, and a demobilization among the red-green parties’ voters,” said Synovate public opinion analyst Nicklas Källebring to the Dagens Nyheter daily which commissioned the poll.

The Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) polled 7.2 (5.9), the Centre Party 4.7 (4.6), and the Christian Democrats 4.6 (3.8). The Green Party dropped to 8.8 (10.6), while the Left Party fell to 5.2 percent (5.6).

The Alliance parties have been shown to lead the polls on only one other occasion during the mandate period – in April 2009 in a poll by Demoskop. The poll then also indicated that it on the Moderate Party that the government’s chances of election success reside.

Synovate interviewed 2,690 people in the May poll and asked the question: “Which party would you vote for if an election were held today.”

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