SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

POLITICS

New poll: Who would win a Swedish election if it were held today?

A new survey suggests that if a Swedish election were held today, the centre-left would have a majority and the Christian Democrats and Liberals would lose all their MPs.

New poll: Who would win a Swedish election if it were held today?
Social Democrat party leader Magdalena Andersson at the party's EU election vigil. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT

Statistics Sweden’s Political Party Preference Survey gets published every year (twice a year until 2023) and is seen as one of the best indicators of Swedes’ political inclinations.

It’s bad news for the right-wing government, and very bad news for two of its parties, according to the latest edition of the survey which was released on June 13th.

It predicts that the Christian Democrats would win 2.8 percent of the vote in an election today and the Liberals 3.2 percent, below the 4 percent required to get into parliament.

It’s worth pointing out that it’s not uncommon for the smaller parties to be polling below the threshold in between elections, but then recover enough to scrape through by the skin of their teeth when it’s actually time to vote. But it also marks the worst result the Christian Democrats have had in the survey since they entered parliament in 1991.

In total, the government and their Sweden Democrat backers would scramble together 45.3 percent of the vote – less than a majority – but in practice even less as the Christian Democrat and Liberal votes wouldn’t count if they lost their seats in parliament.

The centre-left Social Democrats are as usual comfortably the biggest party. At 35 percent, they’re down 3.6 percentage points on the previous Party Preference Survey in June last year, but up 4.7 percentage points on Sweden’s 2022 parliamentary election.

The Moderates, who run Sweden’s government coalition, hold on to their second spot with 19.8 percent, followed by the far-right Sweden Democrats at 19.5 percent.

The Sweden Democrats, who recently had a surprisingly big loss in the EU election, are polling one percentage point below their 2022 result, but 1.5 higher than last year’s poll.

On the left flank, the Left Party has also improved its performance on the 2022 election, polling at 8.2 percent, followed by the Green Party at a largely unchanged 5.2 percent.

The Centre Party, where new leader Muharrem Demirok has been struggling to make his mark, is hovering dangerously close to the parliamentary threshold, at 4.5 percent.

Statistics Sweden carried out the survey in May and interviewed more than 4,400 people.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

CLIMATE CRISIS

Why did Sweden’s emissions drop in 2023 – and what’s in store for the future?

Sweden's greenhouse gas emissions fell by two percent last year, but the good news may be short-lived.

Why did Sweden's emissions drop in 2023 – and what's in store for the future?

In 2023, the Scandinavian country’s emissions amounted to 44.2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, a drop of about one tonne from 2022, according to preliminary statistics, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement.

The two percent decrease was in line with a 1.6 percent drop announced by Statistics Sweden in late May.

The EPA said the 2023 figure represented a decrease of 38 percent from 1990.

The EPA attributed the year-on-year drop primarily to lower emissions from industry – in particular the cement, iron and steel industries, due to lower production as a result of Sweden’s economic recession – and the electric and district heating sector, due to lower electricity prices.

“Emissions have continued to decrease, not least in industry and electric and district heating, which form part of the EU’s emissions trading system,” Anna-Karin Nyström, the head of the EPA’s climate target division said.

“The pace has slowed compared to the year before, when above all domestic transport and (fuel-based) work machinery contributed to a sharp reduction.”

But in March, an independent panel of experts tasked with reviewing climate policy said the government’s plans would lead to short-term emissions increases in 2024 and knock it off-course from its 2030 reduction target.

The Swedish Climate Policy Council, said in the March report that “policy adopted in 2023 will increase emissions and does not lead towards the fulfilment of Sweden’s climate goals and EU commitments by 2030”.

The council said several measures, such as a reduced fuel tax, put climate ambitions at risk.

But it also lamented a lack of concrete measures in the government’s “climate policy action plan”, a roadmap that the government is required by law to present every four years.

Sweden’s Minister for Climate and the Environment Romina Pourmokhtari said she was “not particularly worried” about the review’s assessments.

“They are based on the government’s policy announcements during 2023, and there are several measures that have been added since then,” Pourmokhtari said.

SHOW COMMENTS