Swedish general election of 2018 analysis: A Sweden divided

(NB: S=Social Democrats, M=Moderates, SD=Sweden Democrats, C=Centre, V=Left Party, L=Liberals, KD= Christian Democrats, MP=Green Party, FI=Feminist Initiative, OVR= other parties)


The Swedish general election of 2018 proved to be sensational in many ways, and it also showed how divided Sweden is on key issues on immigration.

Sweden is thought by some to be a typical socio-democratic and very socially liberal society. But the truth is much, much more complicated.

Immigration proved to be one of the most prominent issues of the election, if not the most prominent. Sweden, with a population of just 10 million, takes in 163,000 immigrants each year, the highest in proportion to its current population. Many older and rural Swedish people have felt anxious about potential changes to their way of life as a result, which has resulted in a significant gradual rise in support for the nationalist, anti-EU, and right-wing populist Sweden Democrats. Until 2010 when it first entered the Riksdag, they were a minor party with no real support and no prospect of entering the Riksdag, which has a 4% threshold for parliamentary representation. but since they entered their support has been rising sharply especially among lapsed Social Democrat and Moderate voters, in the same way UKIP won over considerable numbers of Conservative and Labour voters in the UK in the 2015 general election.

In some polls leading up to this Swedish general election, the Sweden Democrats were sometimes topping the poll albeit with less than 25% of the vote, but in the end they only finished third behind the two main parties in Sweden, the Moderates (Sweden's answer to the Conservative Party albeit not as socially conservative), and the Social Democrats (Sweden's answer to the Labour Party). Both of those two suffered significant losses however. Although the Social Democrats did not lose as many votes as they initially feared,  their vote share dropped from 31.0% to just 28.26%, their worst result since 1911. They still however managed to once again with a 3-figure seat total in the Riksdag-100. The Moderates actually lost more seats, losing 14 leaving them with 70 but they still retained second place in the Riksdag. The Sweden Democrats gained themselves only 13 extra seats despite initial hopes of nearly doubling their 2014 seat total. What is more, like with Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, the other major political parties in Sweden have formed a "cordon sanitaire" around the Sweden Democrats due to their racist outlook and have reiterated that they will not include the Sweden Democrats in a coalition under any circumstances.

Due to the falling popularity of the Social Democrats both short-term and long-term, the traditional socialist Left Party (Vansterpartiet) of Sweden were expected to make significant gains although at no point did they poll well enough to beat their historic best of 1998. They in fact finished fifth and only managed to win 7 extra seats, giving them 28; the rural Centre Party meanwhile gained 9 seats for a new total of 31, with the personal charisma and popularity of Annie Loof playing a decisive factor. This also proved crucial for stemming a rise in support for the Sweden Democrats, as their support is considerably stronger in towns and villages than it is in either the Swedish capital, Stockholm, or the second largest Swedish city, Gothenburg. The left-wing bastion of Vasterbottens also gave SD a poor result in terms of regions: 10.9% placing it fourth behind the Left in that region. The Liberals' support remained static, gaining only one seat, whilst the Christian Democrats, who feared elimination from the Riksdag altogether this year, ran a good campaign and won over many conservative voters wanting to keep them in the Riksdag in order to oust the social-democratic government of Stefan Lofven. In the end they polled 6.4% of the vote for a total of 22 seats, meaning that they actually increased their seat total by 6 against all expectations.

The junior partners of the Lofven cabinet, the Greens, were the biggest losers in this election, going perilously close to losing all representation in the earliest stages of the count but eventually pulling through. They nevertheless paid the price for their participation in the unpopular Lofven cabinet, dropping to 4.4% and losing 9 seats, giving them just 16 in the new Riksdag. The Greens' only good results by region were unsurprisingly in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and the university cities of Malmo and Uppsala, home to Sweden's counterpart to Oxford. The Lofven cabinet started off poorly culminating in a December 2014 budget crisis, causing the Left to cease collaborating with it on any level, and despite its progressive statements never recovered from there.

Not a single other political party in Sweden polled even 1% of the vote apiece, and Feminist Initiative, which currently has two MEPs and was hopeful of crossing the threshold in 2014, lost all significant support and plummeted to a miserable 0.46% of the vote, approximately the same level of support they achieved in 2010. A large portion of that support was absorbed by the Left Party, which some FI members once belonged to. Alternative for Sweden, formed by Sweden Democrat Youth which had been expelled from the Sweden Democrats, vanished without trace, polling just 0.31%. All the numerous smaller parties failed to poll 1% even between them and in a notable failure, the Gula Party set a record low in democratic elections for parties registered on a ballot-by polling the grand sum of one vote. As a result of the high levels of international attention due to the tension of the elections, turnout increased from 85.8% to 87.1%, which is an excellent turnout by the standards of democratic nations around the world and better than the Netherlands has ever managed.

The results show how divided Sweden really is on the major issues of the day: the "red bloc", traditionally comprising the Social Democrats, Greens, and Left, has 144 seats in total, and the "blue bloc" (aka the Alliance), traditionally comprising the Moderates, Centre, Christian Democrats and Liberals, has 143 seats in total. Neither bloc has nearly enough seats to form even a viable minority government, and neither is willing to allow the Sweden Democrats into coalition or even enter a confidence and supply arrangement with them. This leaves just two options for Sweden-a never seen before grand coalition between the Social Democrats and Moderates, which would still be a minority government (175 is needed for a majority and only 171 seats in the new Riksdag are held either by the Social Democrats or the Moderates), or early elections for the first time in Sweden since 1970, which would be costly and still not solve the problem.

UPDATE: Overseas votes fully counted and full results released.