Why is the extreme right the party that falls the most in Sweden?

BarcelonaThe Swedish legislative elections this Sunday leave no clear winner, but there is no doubt about who the losers are. On one hand, the far-right party Sweden Democrats (SD, by its Swedish acronym), which has retreated for the first time since it entered Parliament in 2010 and has lost the title of second-largest force. And the other major casualty is the Social Democratic Party. Although it remains the largest formation in the country, the result obtained is the worst in the last century, since Sweden implemented universal suffrage.

The electoral results are still provisional, and as happened four years ago, votes from abroad, which will be counted on Wednesday, could be decisive. The four parties framed within the center-left bloc, until now in the opposition, have obtained 49.5% of the votes and currently hold 176 seats, while the four right-wing formations would remain with 49% of the votes and 173 deputies. Given that an absolute majority is marked by 175 deputies, the 5% of votes yet to be counted could change the delicate balance of power.

And the main culprit for the right-wing bloc not being able to repeat the success of four years ago is the far-right. Its leader, Jimmie Akesson, proposed the next legislature as a potential springboard to be able to run in four years as a candidate for prime minister; what would have been the culmination of a meteoric rise for the Sweden Democrats. The other three parties in government until now had finally accepted it as a full partner in case a conservative executive could be revalidated, in which the SD planned to remain as the leading force. The results of this Sunday's legislative elections, however, have dealt a hard blow to Akesson's party, while his three partners have registered improvements. The image of the SD election headquarters empty while the party reigned in the others was a perfect summary of the election night.

Swedish analysts are having difficulty determining the causes of this retreat for the SD, precisely at one of the sweetest moments for the European far-right. "The explanation is typically Swedish, it is not part of any international trend," says political scientist at Lund University Anders Sannerstedt to ARA, who points to several possible factors.

He states that the idea of the SD obtaining ministries for the first time "may have scared off some voters". Over the last four years, the far-right has had a lot of influence over Ulf Kristersson's government, but from the outside. "There are many Swedish voters who belong to the liberal-conservative camp, but they do not have a strong identification with a party. I once used the metaphor of a flock of crows that start to fly and then all land in the same place: another party. It could be that the Sweden Democrats gained many of these voters in 2022, and now they have lost them to other parties".

Mikael Persson, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg, also believes that some voters may think that "they have gone too far" on migration and security policies, and have decided to switch their vote to more moderate parties. "A government with the SD inside it may not be as attractive to centrist voters," he adds.

Sannerstedt also points out that the other right-wing parties "have moved ever closer" to the Sweden Democrats on their star issues such as migration policy, the fight against gang crime, and support for nuclear energy, so the SD "no longer has a monopoly on its main policies".

Furthermore, he points out that harsh measures against refugees and immigrants, as well as the improvement in crime statistics, may have paradoxically affected the party. "The Sweden Democrats would have done much better if there were shootings every day in areas with many people of foreign origin," he summarizes.

Complex negotiations

Parliamentary fragmentation has been causing headaches for the two major Swedish parties when forming government coalitions for more than a decade. But the Social Democratic leader, Magdalena Andersson, is facing one of the most complicated situations. To achieve a majority, the Social Democrats need the support of the other three parties included in the center-left bloc: The Greens, The Left, and the Centre Party. The latter two are at ideological antipodes: dyed-in-the-wool socialists on one side and liberals close to businesses and in favor of tax cuts on the other. The Left has said during the campaign that it will not support a government led by Magdalena Andersson unless it is part of it, while the Centre Party has insisted that it will not accept any minister from the far left.

"Someone will have to change their position and negotiate political results in exchange for representation in the government," summarizes Persson. Sannerstedt agrees, predicting that there will likely be no government agreement until around Christmas. That said, both trust in the negotiating capacity of the Swedish parties and see the scenario of a repeat election as almost impossible.