Centre-left opposition bloc leads in Swedish vote, poll shows 

Sweden’s centre-left opposition was projected to win 51.3 percent of the vote, ahead of the right-wing bloc’s 46.8 percent, according to an exit poll by public broadcaster SVT.

Voting in Sweden’s election ⁠ended at ⁠18:00 GMT on Sunday, ⁠and official counting is under way. Early results were expected from the Swedish Election Authority within hours.

A separate election-day poll conducted ⁠by broadcaster TV4 also showed the centre-left in the lead.

Swedish exit polls, while often indicative of the outcome, have not always proven accurate. In 2022, for example, a poll projected that Magdalena Andersson’s centre-left bloc would prevail, but the election was ultimately won by a right-wing coalition headed by Ulf Kristersson, Sweden’s current prime minister.

Earlier in this campaign, Sweden’s left-wing bloc appeared headed for a comfortable victory over conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s four-party alliance, which includes the nationalist Sweden Democrats. But the race tightened steadily in the final weeks of the race, turning what had looked like a relatively predictable election into a much closer contest.

Earlier in the year, polls had given the opposition bloc led by Andersson’s Social Democrats a lead of about 10 percentage points. By the final weeks of the campaign, that advantage had collapsed to just two to three points.

A victory for Andersson would provide some respite for left-leaning parties across Europe, where right-wing and far-right parties have been gaining ground. Just last week, Alternative for Germany (AfD) won 44 percent of the vote in a key state election, putting a far-right party within reach of power at state level in Germany for the first time since World War II.

If the early exit polls are wrong, however, Sweden’s election could instead bring the far-right Sweden Democrats into government for the first time. A party with roots in the neo-Nazi movement, it won 20.5 percent of the vote in the 2022 election, becoming the largest party on the right and a crucial source of parliamentary support for Kristersson’s minority government.

Until now, however, the Sweden Democrats have remained outside government. Kristersson announced in April that his conservative Moderates would be prepared to bring the party into a governing coalition if the right secured a majority, which would give the Sweden Democrats cabinet positions for the first time.

But if the exit-poll lead is confirmed, the Sweden Democrats would be less likely to enter government.