On Sunday, as nationalist movements gain popularity across Europe, Swedes will vote on whether their country, too, will continue its rightward shift, paving the way for a party with neo-Nazi roots to take power.
The Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, of the conservative Moderate Party, leads a three-party, centre-right coalition that already includes the far-right anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD). Going up against him is former prime minister Magdalena Andersson of the centre-left Social Democrats (SAP).
But this time, if the right wins, Kristersson has promised the SD – currently the second-largest party in the Riksdag – cabinet posts. That would bring the far right into government for the first time.
Polls show the centre-left opposition enjoying a narrow lead, but that lead is narrowing.
“It’s going to be a really messy situation here,” Sten Widmalm, professor of political science at Uppsala University, told The i Paper. “There are great uncertainties.”
