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SURVEY: Here’s how Swedes would vote if an election were held today

Support for the Social Democrats has soared according to a new survey, as support for the government and the Sweden Democrats has dwindled. The Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Greens now have 50 percent of voter support.

SURVEY: Here's how Swedes would vote if an election were held today
A young boy joins his mother in an election booth in Malmö in September 2022. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

The Social Democrats are the clear winners in the new survey from Statistics Sweden, with an increase of 8.3 percent since the 2022 election and 4 percent since the last survey was carried out in November last year, putting them on 38.6 percent in May 2023.

Staying in the left bloc, the Left Party has also seen a minor increase in support. If an election were held today, it would receive 7.3 of the votes, an increase of 0.6 percent since the 2022 election, or a decrease of 0.3 since November last year.

Along with the Green Party, who would receive 4.1 percent of the vote (down 0.3 percent since November 2022 or 1 percent since the 2022 election in September), the Social Democrats and the Left Party would have exactly 50 percent of the vote if Sweden were to go to the polls today.

The Centre Party, the fourth party in the left bloc, has also seen a drop in support, with a decrease of 2.5 percent since the election and 1.2 percent since November 2022, putting it at 4.2 percent. Along with the Greens, the Centre Party is hovering just over the 4 percent parliamentary threshold.

If the Centre Party were to join the rest of the left bloc in forming a government, the bloc as a whole would have 54.2 percent of the vote, compared to the 48.8 percent of the vote it received in September’s election.

Respondents were asked how they would vote “if an election had been held today”. Statistically significant changes are marked with an asterisk (*). Photo: Statistics Sweden

On the other side of the political divide in the right-wing bloc, the Moderates are the only party to see an increase in support, up 0.2 percent since November 2022 which puts them at 19.1, the same figure as in the September 2022 election.

Its partners in government, the Liberals and Christian Democrats, are both under the 4 percent parliamentary threshold at 3.4 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively. This represents a decrease of 1.2 percent for the Liberals since the election or a 0.7 percent decrease since November 2022, and a decrease of 1.6 percent for the Christian Democrats since the election or 1.2 percent since November.

The Sweden Democrats, who overtook the Moderates as Sweden’s second largest party after the election last year, have also seen a decrease in support of 2.5 percent since the election or 0.2 percent since November, which puts them on a total of 18 percent.

This would mean the Moderates would retake them as Sweden’s second largest party if an election were to be held today.

Sweden’s current governing bloc, the Moderates, Liberals, Christian Democrats with the support of the Sweden Democrats, returned 49.5 percent of the vote in September’s election. This new survey would put it on just 44.2 percent of the vote, meaning it would lose its majority if an election were to be held today.

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FACT CHECK: Has the EU really banned Swedes from lighting bonfires?

Claims that a new EU law had outlawed lighting fires in private gardens have hit the headlines recently, with outraged Swedes accusing Brussels of banning Sweden's traditional spring fires. But how true are they?

FACT CHECK: Has the EU really banned Swedes from lighting bonfires?

What’s happened?

On April 6th, TV4 Nyheter published a story claiming that burning twigs and leaves in private gardens has been illegal since the beginning of the year, due to new EU rules.

“A common habit for gardeners during their spring cleaning is now banned. An EU law which came into force at the beginning of the year demands that all food and garden waste are sorted separately,” the article states, quoting Milla Sundström, an administrator from the waste and chemicals unit of the Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket) as saying this “indirectly” bans spring fires.

Sundström added that the ban is enforced by local councils, so rules may differ.

Wait… why is it so important for Swedes to burn twigs in their gardens?

It’s a common way of getting rid of the leaves and branches that have accumulated over the last year, with the ashes often used as fertiliser in the garden. It’s usually only allowed for a couple of weeks a year in spring and again in the autumn, and during Valborg at the end of April, when it’s traditional to light a spring bonfire.

Quite a lot of people in Sweden live in pretty remote areas, so it’s much easier for them to get rid of bulky garden waste by burning it rather than having to drive it off to the nearest recycling centre.

So has burning garden waste been banned by the EU?

Technically, no.

The EU law says that member states should “encourage the recycling, including composting and digestion, of bio-waste”, as well as encourage home composting and promoting the use of materials produced by bio-waste, but it doesn’t say anything about banning fires.

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Center Party MEP Emma Wiesner wrote on X, before blaming the government for interpreting the law incorrectly.

“Banning tidying up in your own garden has clearly NOT been the EU’s intention. The inability of the government and authorities to implement the simplest of directives is embarrassing and adds to the contempt for politicians,” she added.

So who has banned fires on private property?

In a regulation from December 22nd, 2022 signed by Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari, the government writes that exemptions “from the prohibition on the incineration of separately collected waste” may be granted in the case of public events. 

This refers to a separate law governing waste, which states that “waste that has been collected separately to be prepared for reuse or recycling should not be incinerated”.

This regulation came into effect on January 1st, 2024.

Wait… what does that even mean?

Admittedly, the regulation isn’t particularly clear. Having said that, the new rules on bonfires appear to stem from Naturvårdsverket interpreting this regulation as an outright ban.

“The new regulations mean that garden waste must be composted on-site, left at a recycling centre, or collected by the council,” it writes in a post on its website dated April 11th. “In practice, this means that it is no longer permitted to burn branches, leaves and other garden waste”.

Naturvårdsverket claims that this is “part of the introduction of the EU’s waste directive, which means that bio-waste should primarily be recycled”.

It does, however, add that local councils are able to grant exceptions, “for example if it’s a long way to the closest recycling centre”.

So whose fault is it?

Energy and business minister Ebba Busch, who is head of the climate and business ministry, seemed to indicate in a post on X that the confusion was due to the badly-worded rules introduced by the government at the beginning of the year, which were designed to coincide with the EU’s waste directive.

“I want to be clear and say that the government has not introduced a new ban against burning garden waste,” she wrote, alongside a picture of her standing in front of a fire in her own garden.

“There are new rules, but not any huge changes compared to how it’s worked in the past. We can see that these can be interpreted in different ways. For that reason, the rules will be clarified,” she added.

Can I burn twigs in my garden then?

Maybe.

Despite politicians sharing posts telling you to “Keep calm and keep lighting fires,” you should check with your municipality before you do so.

Some, like Halmstad, have interpreted the new regulations as meaning that you can still light a fire in your own garden, while others require you to apply for an exemption (which usually includes paying a fee), whether you’re applying for a May bonfire or just want to burn some leaves in your own garden.

Others, like Värmdö municipality, allow you to burn things like twigs and small branches in your garden, while stating that grass and leaves should be composted.

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