Swedes head to polls in close-run election

STOCKHOLM, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Swedes voted on Sunday in an election pitting the incumbent centre-left Social Democrats against a right-wing bloc that has embraced the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats as it tries to win back power after eight years in opposition. .

With steadily growing numbers of shootings unnerving voters, campaigning has seen parties battle to be the toughest on gang crime, while surging inflation and the energy crisis in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine have increasingly taken center-stage.

“I’m fearing very much a repressive, very right-wing government coming,” said Malin Ericsson, 53, a travel consultant outside a voting station in central Stockholm.

Opinion polls show the center-left running neck-and-neck with the right-wing bloc and suggest the Sweden Democrats will be the second biggest party behind the Social Democrats, overtaking the conservative Moderates. read more

Paediatrician Erik George, 52, said he thought the election campaign had been marked by a rise in populism. “I think those times are really tumultuous and people have a hard time figuring out what’s going on,” he said outside the voting station.

For others, the main goal is change. “There’s a lot that is damaging to Sweden already now and lots needs to be done,” said Johan Hudson, a 50-year-old forestry worker. “We have to start from scratch.”

While law and order is home turf for the right, gathering economic storm clouds as households and companies face sky-high power prices may boost Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, seen as a safe pair of hands and more popular than her own party. read more

“My clear message is: during the pandemic we supported Swedish companies and households. I will act in the exact same way again if I get your renewed confidence,” she said this week in one of the final debates ahead of the vote.

Andersson was finance minister for many years before becoming Sweden’s first female prime minister a year ago. Her main rival is Moderates’ leader Ulf Kristersson, who sees himself as the only one who can unite the right and unseat her.

Kristersson has spent years deepening ties with the Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration party with white supremacists among its founders. Initially shunned by all the other parties, the Sweden Democrats are now increasingly part of the mainstream right. read more

“This election is a lot about how we fight crime,” Kristersson told Reuters on the sidelines of one of his final campaign rallies. “If people vote for change, we will deliver change.”

For many center-left voters – and even some on the right – the prospect of Jimmie Akesson’s Sweden Democrats having a say on government policy or joining the cabinet remains deeply unsettling.

Kristersson wants to form a government with the small Christian Democrats and, possibly, the Liberals, and only rely on Sweden Democrat support in parliament. But those are assurances the center-left don’t take at face value.

Uncertainty looms large over the election, with both blocs facing long and hard negotiations to form a government in a polarized and emotionally-charged political landscape.

Andersson will need to get support from the Center Party and the Left, who are ideological opposites, and probably the Green Party as well, if she wants a second term as prime minister.

“I have pretty few red lines,” Annie Loof, whose Center Party split with Kristersson over his embrace of the Sweden Democrats, said in a recent SVT interview.

“One red line I do have is that I will never let through a government that gives the Sweden Democrats influence.”

Voting closes at 1800 GMT with a preliminary official result expected around 2100 GMT.

Additional reporting by Janis Laizans, Isabella Ronca, Terje Solsvik and Anna Ringstrom, Editing by William Maclean, Elaine Hardcastle, Catherine Evans

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