T24 Foreign News
While 90 percent of the votes are counted in Sweden, whose membership in NATO is on the agenda, the union of right-wing parties is ahead of the currently incumbent centre-left. There is an earthquake of the far right in the country’s politics; The populist Sweden Democrats party is Sweden’s second largest party according to current results.
Exit polls released Sunday evening predicted the Social Democrats and their centre-left allies would win by a narrow margin. However, as the votes were counted, the results began to turn in favor of the right.
While 90 percent of the votes are counted, the bloc consisting of 4 right-wing parties has 176 votes out of 349 seats in the parliament. According to the current results, the left block remains at 173.
Swedes living abroad will have their votes counted in the middle of the week, so it will take a few moments before it becomes clear who won the close election. The very close results from the ballot box may complicate the government formation process.
The leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson, stated that the right-wing bloc seems to be winning and said, “It seems that there will be a change of power.”
The fact that the Sweden Democrats’ vote share has risen above 20 percent indicates a huge shift among Swedish voters who are generally prone to center and centre-left parties.
The ‘Sweden Democrats’ party emerged from the neo-Nazi movement in the mid-1990s and is often accused of extremism today, The Guardian reports.