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POLITICS

‘The party is in big trouble’: How Swedes would vote if an election were held today

The Liberal Party and the Greens would lose their seats in parliament if Sweden went to the polls today, according to a major party preference survey. Here's why it matters.

Published: 2 June 2021 16:53 CEST
Updated: 9 June 2021 16:45 CEST
Nyamko Sabuni's Liberal Party have suffered in the latest polls. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT
Nyamko Sabuni's Liberal Party have suffered in the latest polls. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT

The survey, published on Wednesday by Statistics Sweden, estimates that the governing centre-left Social Democrats would still win the largest share of the votes, with the conservative Moderate Party coming second, and the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats third.

The minority Liberal Party suffered an overall decrease of 3 percentage points compared to Sweden’s last election in 2018. The survey estimates that 0.5 percent of voters would switch from the Liberals to the Centre Party. 

Nicholas Aylott, associate professor of political science at Södertörn University, told The Local: “The Liberals are suffering because the party is split along the new fault line of Swedish politics which is the question of immigration and integration and relations with the Sweden Democrats.”

“If a party finds itself evenly split on such a central question, one that stirs up so much sensitivity on both sides, then it’s likely to be in trouble,” he said.   

Liberal leaders recently voted to stop propping up the country’s red-green coalition government and campaign alongside the right-wing Moderate party in the run-up to next year’s September general election.  

“This manoeuvre seems to have had no pay off at all or been swamped by its costs,” Aylott said.  

“The party is in big trouble, there’s no doubt about that.”

Because of Sweden’s political model, one of the larger parties would need the support of smaller parties in order to form a government. But the threshold for getting a seat in parliament is 4 percent – a threshold the Liberals and the Greens are currently at risk of not making. If only one of them gets in, it could tip the election either in favour of the left (if the Greens get in, but the Liberals do not) or the right (vice versa). 

According to this latest poll, the Greens are only missing the 0.2 percent needed to make that threshold, while the Liberals would need gains of 1.5 percentage points.  

Statistic Sweden polling data May 2021
Estimate of election results “if an election had been held today” May 2021, and the difference compared with the 2018 parliamentary election. From left: Centre Party (C), Liberal Party (L), Moderate Party (M), Christian Democrats (KD), Social Democratic Party (S), Left Party (V), Green Party (MP), Sweden Democrats (SD). The asterisk means the change is statistically significant. Data and graph: Statistics Sweden

The results did not differ significantly from the last survey conducted by Statistics Sweden in November 2020. After significant losses at the end of 2020, the governing Social Democrats have maintained the same points.

“There are signs of politics getting back to normal to some extent after the pandemic,” according to Aylott. 

He said that the return of criminality, violence and instability to front pages could favour parties of the right or that the return to a pre-pandemic “normal” would benefit incumbent parties of the status quo. 

Compared with the 2018 parliamentary election, the Sweden Democrats took about 0.6 percent of votes from the Social Democratic Party, and saw overall gains of about 1.4 percent in these survey results. The Moderate Party would gain significant points from the last election. 

Aylott said: “It’s difficult to see from these results what would happen with the next government. It’s so unpredictable.”

There is also a level of uncertainty around rumours that the current Prime Minister Stefan Löfven might resign as leader of the Social Democrats this summer.

According to Statistics Sweden, just over 13 percent of the electorate is still unsure about who to vote for.

A general election will be held in September 2022 to elect the 349 members of Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag.

Member comments

  2. One should also speculate what might happen if the Liberals and the Greens _both_ fall below the 4% threshold in the general election next year. As things stand, the Social Democrats along with the Left and Centre Parties would get 46.6% while the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats would scrape together 45.8%. But these numbers depend on Centern giving its unwavering support to a SocDem/Left coalition, which would seem doubtful for the full length of a 4-year term with Centern’s history of changing sides when it suits them. They also disagree profoundly with the Left Party on certain fundamental issues, making any kind of coalition difficult right from the start. It is indeed because of this situation that Miljöpartiet holds such a strong bargaining position in the current government. In other words, should Miljöpartiet fall below 4% in the next general election, a left-wing socialist coalition will be automatically doomed.

    Nobody will miss the Liberals should they lose their seats in Riksdagen, while the departure of the Greens would be very significant. Miljöpartiet currently plays a totally disproportionate role in today’s government with regard in particular to long-term infrastructure policy that includes airports, railways, nuclear power, and much more. It’s quite terrifying how such a small but radical party can hold the Social Democrats to ransom on such vital policies that will have an effect on Sweden over several decades to come.

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For members

WORK PERMITS

Business leaders: Work permit threshold ‘has no place in Swedish labour model’

Sweden's main business group has attacked a proposal to exempt some jobs from a new minimum salary for work permits, saying it is "unacceptable" political interference in the labour model and risks seriously affecting national competitiveness.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:37 CEST
Updated: 26 April 2024 06:11 CEST
Business leaders: Work permit threshold 'has no place in Swedish labour model'

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise said in its response to the government’s consultation, submitted on Thursday afternoon, that it not only opposed the proposal to raise the minimum salary for a work permit to Sweden’s median salary (currently 34,200 kronor a month), but also opposed plans to exempt some professions from the higher threshold. 

“To place barriers in the way of talent recruitment by bringing in a highly political salary threshold in combination with labour market testing is going to worsen the conditions for Swedish enterprise in both the short and the long term, and risks leading to increased fraud and abuse,” the employer’s group said.   

The group, which represents businesses across most of Sweden’s industries, has been critical of the plans to further raise the salary threshold for work permits from the start, with the organisation’s deputy director general, Karin Johansson, telling The Local this week that more than half of those affected by the higher threshold would be skilled graduate recruits Swedish businesses sorely need.   

But the fact that it has not only rejected the higher salary threshold, but also the proposed system of exemptions, will nonetheless come as a blow to Sweden’s government, and particular the Moderate Party led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, which has long claimed to be the party of business. 

The confederation complained that the model proposed in the conclusions of the government inquiry published in February would give the government and political parties a powerful new role in setting salary conditions, undermining the country’s treasured system of collective bargaining. 

The proposal for the higher salary threshold, was, the confederation argued, “wrong in principle” and did “not belong in the Swedish labour market”. 

“That the state should decide on the minimum salary for certain foreign employees is an unacceptable interference in the Swedish collective bargaining model, where the parties [unions and employers] weigh up various needs and interested in negotiations,” it wrote. 

In addition, the confederation argued that the proposed system where the Sweden Public Employment Service and the Migration Agency draw up a list of exempted jobs, which would then be vetted by the government, signified the return of the old system of labour market testing which was abolished in 2008.

“The government agency-based labour market testing was scrapped because of it ineffectiveness, and because it was unreasonable that government agencies were given influence over company recruitment,” the confederation wrote. 

“The system meant long handling times, arbitrariness, uncertainty for employers and employees, as well as an indirect union veto,” it added. “Nothing suggests it will work better this time.” 

For a start, it said, the Public Employment Service’s list of professions was inexact and outdated, with only 179 professions listed, compared to 430 monitored by Statistics Sweden. This was particularly the case for new skilled roles within industries like battery manufacturing. 

“New professions or smaller professions are not caught up by the classification system, which among other things is going to make it harder to recruit in sectors which are important for the green industrial transition,” the confederation warned. 

Rather than implement the proposals outlined in the inquiry’s conclusions, it concluded, the government should instead begin work on a new national strategy for international recruitment. 

“Sweden instead needs a national strategy aimed at creating better conditions for Swedish businesses to be able to attract, recruit and retain international competence.”

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