Opposition leads Tidö parties by 4.5 points in SVT exit poll

Sweden’s opposition parties lead the governing Tidö parties by 4.5 percentage points in SVT’s national exit poll, Valu, SVT reported on Sunday. The Liberals also appear to have comfortably cleared the parliamentary threshold.

The Social Democrats, Green Party, Left Party and Centre Party received a combined 51.3 per cent, according to the poll. The Moderates, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Sweden Democrats received 46.8 per cent.

“One should not draw conclusions too early, but this looks very difficult for the Tidö parties to recover,” SVT political commentator Mats Knutson said.

The opposition parties would receive 183 seats in parliament, compared with 166 for the four Tidö parties. The Social Democrats appear to be the largest party, followed by the Moderates, although the gap between the Moderates and Sweden Democrats is narrow.

“If this were the election result, this government would fall and Magdalena Andersson would become prime minister,” Social Democratic party secretary Tobias Baudin said.

The Social Democrats received 28.4 per cent, followed by the Moderates on 18.1 per cent and the Sweden Democrats on 17.2 per cent. The Left Party received 8.0 per cent, the Centre Party 7.5 per cent, the Green Party 7.4 per cent, the Christian Democrats 6.1 per cent and the Liberals 5.4 per cent.

Sweden Democrat Björn Söder described the party’s result as disappointing but said he expected the figure to change. He said he had expected the Sweden Democrats to remain the country’s second-largest party.

Moderate party secretary Karin Enström said an election victory was still possible, but acknowledged that forming a government would be difficult for the left-wing parties if the poll results held.

Valu is an anonymous survey conducted among voters at selected polling stations and early voting locations. A total of 13,709 voters responded to a questionnaire of about 50 questions.

TV4’s separate exit poll also showed the Liberals clearing the threshold and a majority for the red-green parties. The final election result had not been established when the surveys were published.