Reuters —
Sweden’s center-left opposition parties looked set to win a combined 51.3% of the votes in Sunday’s election for parliament, ahead of the governing right-wing bloc’s 46.8%, an exit poll by public broadcaster SVT showed.
Swedes voted Sunday in a tight election that has effectively become a referendum on whether the far-right Sweden Democrats should join the government and cement their journey from pariahs to trusted partners in a country once seen as one of Europe’s most liberal.
The party, with roots in the neo-Nazi fringe, has around 19% of the vote, according to opinion polling carried out before the election, and the ruling center-right minority coalition has vowed to bring them into its bloc to secure Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson a second term in office.
“We have agreed to campaign on a platform of building a common, majority government and that I will lead that government,” Kristersson told Reuters on the campaign trail in late August.
