Sweden exit poll: Left on course for election win in blow to far right

STOCKHOLM — Former center-left Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson is on course to retake power in Sweden as exit polling suggests a right-wing alliance that includes the far right is falling short. Andersson, the leader of the Social Democrats, spent much of the election campaign warning voters against handing ministerial posts to what she called an “extremist” party with “neo-Nazi” roots — the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. If the surveys prove accurate, it would mean rejection for incumbent PM Ulf Kristersson. The conservative Moderate party leader had decided to work closely with the Sweden Democrats and promised to give them seats in cabinet for the first time if he won. Two separate exit polls for Sweden’s SVT public broadcaster and TV4 showed Andersson’s left bloc on track to take 51% of the vote. (Sweden’s electoral system is based on proportional representation.) Kristersson’s alliance on the right was projected to win 47%. Exit polls have not always been accurate in the past, but the picture should become clearer later on Sunday night when broadcasters are expected to announce updated forecasts after a critical mass of districts declare results. Whoever ends up winning, party leaders will take weeks to finalize a new coalition agreement. “Swedish elections are always close,” Andersson told POLITICO earlier on Sunday as she toured the suburbs of Stockholm in her dark red campaign bus. “When I’ve been around Sweden, a lot of people I’ve spoken to said they see things that the government has done that they like but there are also lots of things that they don’t like. And many people say to me that it’s enough now.” With the prospect of the far right entering government for the first time, the vote marks a watershed moment for Sweden that will be watched closely elsewhere in Europe, where other populist nationalist parties are gaining ground. Even Andersson accepts that a victory for her left bloc would not consign the Sweden Democrats to history, especially if the final result is a narrow one. “The hate that they have spread through this election, and if they would become ministers and use their platforms as ministers to spread hate? Well, we’ll see if the Swedish people are very tempted on that,” she said. But victory would be a major relief for the Social Democrat leader and her political allies in other parties on the left of Swedish politics. Andersson was thrown out of office in an election four years ago, and spent the intervening period leading the opposition. For months, her bloc — which includes the Left Party, with its communist roots, as well as the Greens — had enjoyed a comfortable advantage in the polls. But that lead narrowed dramatically in the last two weeks of the campaign, with one poll on the eve of the vote putting the two rival blocs in a dead heat. Kristersson’s allies on the right may be left wondering whether he made a mistake in seeking to collaborate so closely with such controversial partners in the far-right Sweden Democrats and their leader Jimmie Åkesson. The PM told POLITICO he trusted Åkesson because the two had worked well together for four years, with the Sweden Democrats supporting the government in parliament without having ministers formally in the cabinet. Kristersson and Åkesson tried to persuade voters they deserved another term to finish the work they started — especially bringing down violent crime and reducing immigration. But Andersson argued that many voters had balked at moves by the Kristersson government to expel young people from the country who had attended Swedish schools, spoke the language fluently and made their lives in Sweden. “People think that’s stupid and inhumane,” she told POLITICO on Sunday. It didn’t help Kristersson’s cause that his side was forced to fight claims of Russian infiltration in the final days of the campaign. In an earlier interview with POLITICO, Andersson demanded that Kristersson come clean about allegations that the partner of a se