The Moderate Party’s head Ulf Kristersson led a coalition that narrowly won the majority of seats in the Swedish parliament.
A four-party opposition coalition led by the Moderate Party’s Ulf Kristersson has officially won the general election in Sweden after Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson conceded defeat on Wednesday. With just a handful of votes remaining to be counted four days after Sunday’s close-call vote, the right-wing bloc is on track to win 176 seats to the left-wing’s 173, according to the country’s election authority as reported by Reuters.
“The advantage they enjoy in parliament is one- or two-seat.,” Andersson, Sweden’s first woman prime minister, told a press conference. “It’s a thin majority, but it is a majority.”
“The work to create a new government is now under my control. This government will serve all the citizens of Sweden.,” Kristofferson told reporters. His party received 19.1%, just narrowly ahead of his coalition partner, the Sweden Democrats. The latter are scheduled to receive 20.6%.
Despite their popularity among voters, the Sweden Democrats’ anti-immigration stance has reduced their chances of receiving broad backing from some conservative factions. Andersson played to those worries, acknowledging that she shared some voters’ concerns that her party’s rivals had attained such power.
Stockholm, after years of accepting more immigrants than any other European nation, has admitted it cannot support or force them to comply with its laws. This is driving once-hospitable Swedes to the anti-immigration movements. Andersson admitted earlier this year that integration of migrants was “To poor” and the society tasked with enforcing order “Too weak” following violent riots in numerous cities triggered by an anti-Muslim politician’s Quran-burning publicity stunt. The country’s immigrant population has doubled over the last 20 years and now constitutes a fifth of the Swedish population, a figure over 40% of Swedes considered too high when surveyed in 2016.
After eight years of Social Democrats in power, immigration was not the only reason voters voted to remove them from office. Sweden, like the rest of Europe is currently in an economic crisis. It may be facing a recession next year. Its application to NATO, submitted alongside Finland’s in a show of solidarity with Ukraine, has yet to be approved, as Turkey takes issue with photos of several left-wing MPs waving the flags of a group Ankara has blacklisted as terrorists.
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