STOCKHOLM — Swedes voted on Sunday in an election pitting the incumbent center-left Social Democrats against a right-wing bloc that has embraced the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats in a bid 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, where the Sweden Democrats look to have recently overtaken the Moderates as the second biggest party behind the Social Democrats.
Paediatrician Erik George, 52, said he thought the election campaign had been marked by a rise in populism.
“I think that times are really tumultuous and people have a hard time figuring out what’s going on,” he said outside the voting station.
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.
“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.
