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How Swedes would vote if an election were held today

A new opinion poll from Sweden's biggest statistics agency suggests that the country's centre-left political bloc has doubled its lead on the centre-right opposition in the past six months.

Published: 1 December 2016 11:27 CET
Updated: 1 December 2016 17:27 CET
How Swedes would vote if an election were held today
From left, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven of the Social Democrats, Moderate leader Anna Kinberg Batra, Left Party leader Jonas Sjöstedt and the Christian Democrats' Ebba Busch Thor. Photo: Maja Suslin/T

Released on Thursday, Statistics Sweden's so-called Political Party Preference Survey suggests that if an election were to be held today, the current coalition government would receive 33.7 percent of the votes – which would see them land at 41.4 percent with the Left Party's presumed backing in parliament.

That compares to the 37.9 percent who would vote for the four centre-right Alliance parties – the Moderates (M), the Centre Party (C), the Liberals (L) and the Christian Democrats (KD). However, only 3.1 percent said they would vote for the Christian Democrats, which means the party would not make it past the 4-percent barrier to get into parliament.

A total of 17.5 percent of respondents told pollsters they would throw their support behind the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD).

The figures mean that the ruling Social Democrat-Green coalition, if you also take into account the support of the Left Party in parliament, now has a lead of 3.5 percentage points on the main four-party opposition – double what they got in the last Statistics Sweden survey in May.

This does not mean they have cause to cheer. Support for both the Social Democrats (S) and the Green Party (MP) has dropped slightly in the past six months and 29.2 percent and 4.5 percent of voters, respectively, now support the two parties. However, according to Statistics Sweden, the decrease is within the margin of error.

It said the main reason behind the increased lead is that the Moderates – who are the biggest party in the Alliance opposition – have fallen by 1.9 percentage points to 22.8 percent in the new poll.

However, if you look at the November poll compared to Sweden's general election in 2014, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats are the big winners, increasing their support by 4.6 percentage points to 17.5 percent, followed by the Left Party, up by 2 percentage points on autumn 2014.

The Green Party, which is a member of Sweden's government for the first time, has seen its support fall by 2.4 percentage points since the general election – losing more than a third of their 2014 voters.

READ ALSO: 'SD could break 20 percent barrier in next election'


The figures show how much support for the parties has increased/decreased since the 2014 election. The column on the right shows support for 'others'. Photo: SCB/Statistics Sweden

A total of 8,952 respondents took part in Statistics Sweden's survey, which asked the question “What party would you vote for if a parliamentary election were to be held in the coming days?”

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POLITICS

‘Very little debate’ on consequences of Sweden’s crime and migration clampdown

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast. 

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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