Sweden holds a parliamentary election on Sunday, 13 September, in what Reuters describes as effectively a referendum on whether the far-right Sweden Democrats should join the government and complete their journey from pariahs to trusted partners in a country once seen as one of Europe's most liberal. AP reports that the vote will determine whether a conservative leader remains in charge and a hard-right party wins ministerial jobs for the first time, or whether the centre-left returns to power, adding that "the question of who will govern has taken up more space than actual policy issues."
More than 8 million people, out of a population of about 10.6 million, are eligible to vote for all 349 seats in the Riksdag, which will in turn elect the prime minister. Sweden is also NATO's newest member.
The Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in the neo-Nazi fringe, have around 19% of the vote according to the latest polls, and the ruling centre-right minority coalition has vowed to bring them into its bloc to secure Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson a second term in office, Reuters reported. "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.
A promise reversed
In 2018, Kristersson promised Holocaust survivor Hedi Fried that his Moderates would never cooperate with the Sweden Democrats, at a time when the party was still treated as a political outcast by much of Sweden's right wing, Reuters reported. Four years later, the party's support helped carry Kristersson into office, lending its votes to the three-party right-wing minority government he has led since 2022.
Kristersson has credited his cooperation with Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson since 2022 for delivering growth, lower prices for energy and food, reducing gang crime and shootings, and cutting asylum numbers to record lows. He has promised to deepen ties after Sunday's vote and give the party cabinet positions for the first time.
Over the past four years, the government has abolished permanent residency for refugees, tightened welfare rules and boosted expulsions of those without a right to stay, Reuters reported. According to reports, asylum applications have dropped to a 40-year low, and shooting deaths are down 75%.
Kristersson says the focus will now shift to integration, but the Sweden Democrats want to go further. "In Sweden it is Swedish culture, the Swedish language, Swedish laws, Swedish norms, Swedish morals and Swedish traditions that apply," Mattias Karlsson, a Sweden Democrat lawmaker and one of Åkesson's closest allies, told Reuters. "If you can't accept that, you have to find somewhere else to live."
The critics
Kristersson, a 62-year-old father of three, headed the Moderates' youth wing on a platform of open borders and took over as party leader in 2017 at a low point, when the centre right was split over whether to work with the Sweden Democrats and had no clear path back to power, Reuters reported. "There were fundamental things that just weren't working in Sweden," he said at the launch of his party's manifesto in August.
"He talks about being the adult in the room, and, by and large, he has succeeded in being that," Jenny Madestam, a political scientist at Södertörn University, told Reuters.
Critics argue his pursuit of power risks cementing the far right's anti-immigration agenda at the heart of Swedish politics. "I've lived in Donald Trump's USA the last few years and I've seen how fast it can go in the wrong direction," said Birgitta Ohlsson, a Centre Party lawmaker and former EU affairs minister. Separately, Ohlsson told Reuters that Sweden Democrat entry into government "would have an enormously negative impact on the liberal ideals of our country," adding:
"We've already seen the effects while they've been outside government, and it would be ten times worse."
A campaign shadowed by a security scare
Just over a week before the election, the extremism watchdog Expo revealed that a Sweden Democrat civil servant working in parliament had shared pro-Russian propaganda for years, according to AFP reporting. Kristersson, who has faced other scandals during his term, reacted sharply, telling the newspaper Aftonbladet: "We are in the middle of a European war."
Despite that backdrop, defence itself has barely featured in the campaign, according to an analysis by the European Council on Foreign Relations, since all major parties broadly agree on the threat from Russia and want to face it collectively. The election has instead been fought over welfare, migration, crime, climate and the economy, areas where ECFR's analysis suggests the governing parties are currently losing ground.
Kristersson's coalition is leaning heavily on economic optimism to make its case for a second term, according to EUobserver. Sweden revised its 2026 GDP growth forecast upward to 2.5% on 27 August, a figure that contrasts sharply with the broader European Union average of around 1.1%.
A knife-edge race
Polls show the left and right blocs running neck and neck with the centre-left opposition, backing Social Democrats leader Magdalena Andersson for prime minister, holding a small but narrowing lead as of 10 September. Voters face a choice, Andersson told AFP, between "a Sweden that is more like Sweden, where people have a job and where we can improve our welfare" or "a completely different country with a government dominated by Sweden Democrats, a far-right party founded by neo-Nazis."
If the right bloc wins, Kristersson's position could still face a test from within: the Sweden Democrats could outpoll the Moderates themselves. "The Sweden Democrats would be in control, in practice," said Marie Demker, a professor of political science at Gothenburg University, in comments to Reuters, even if most analysts expect Kristersson would remain prime minister.
Åkesson's Sweden Democrats have spent the last four years as Kristersson's main parliamentary backers, and the party apologised in 2025 for its past neo-Nazi and antisemitic views. "The election is a referendum on the Sweden Democrats; whether we continue to go down a far-right path," Jan Guillou, an author and political commentator, told Reuters. Historian and author Lars Trägårdh offered a similar reading: "I think you'll see a continued normalization of the Sweden Democrats, it's time to tone down the hysteria."
The Sweden Democrats' promises to end multiculturalism, restore traditional Swedish values and ban some forms of Muslim dress could deepen social divisions and shift the political centre of gravity further right. "I'm afraid more people will be expelled. I'm worried about the press, free speech and the freedom to demonstrate," said Kurdo Baksi, an author and anti-racism campaigner, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a pro-immigration demonstration in Stockholm.
A fragile opposition too
Even a win would leave Andersson with a difficult task. The four opposition parties, the Social Democrats, Greens, Left Party and Centre Party, broadly agree on increasing welfare and public spending, Reuters reported, but differ on key questions, including a proposed tax on billionaires and whether Sweden should build new nuclear reactors. The Centre Party has also refused to sit in the same government as the Left Party, a structural obstacle to any centre-left coalition regardless of Sunday's result.
Sources: Reuters, The Associated Press, AFP, European Council on Foreign Relations, EUobserver
