Sweden is headed for a hung parliament after an election on Sunday 9th of September saw support for the nationalist Sweden Democrats surge, as one of Europe’s most liberal nations turned right amid fears over immigration.
In Sweden, an influx of 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015 - the most in Europe in relation to the country’s population of 10m - has polarised voters and fractured the long-standing political consensus.
With almost all districts having reported their results, the ruling centre-left Social Democrats and Greens and their Left Party parliamentary allies had 40.6% of the vote, while the opposition centre-right Alliance was at 40.3%. That gave the centre-left 144 seats in the 349-seat parliament against 142 for the Alliance, suggesting weeks of uncertainty before a workable government can be formed.
The Sweden Democrats, a 30-year-old party with Nazi roots won 17.6% and 63 seats, up from 12.9% and 49 seats in the last election four years ago, the biggest gain by any party in Sweden’s parliament.
Sweden’s National Bank (Riksbank) announced just days before the election that it expects to raise interest rates in December or February 2019. The country has had negative interest rates (-0.5%) since 2016.
