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POLITICS

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.

Published: 1 June 2023 16:07 CEST
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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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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