All to play in a very dividen Sweden
Neither the left nor the right-wing bloc has achieved a sufficient lead in Sweden's general elections this time around. These elections had important new elements, the most notable of which were the abandonment of Sweden's traditional neutrality and its request to join NATO, and the notable increase in crime, a phenomenon that the ultra-conservative Sweden Democrats (SD) have linked to immigration. It has done so with undoubted success, to the extent that a large part of Swedes have internalised that their model of society may explode into pieces if the mass reception of immigrants - a chapter in which Sweden was the most advanced country - is not redirected. Even the Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party, Magdalena Andersson, has criticised in the campaign the unwillingness of a large part of the population of foreign origin to integrate and has even denounced the proliferation of "parallel societies", i.e. ghettos in the country's interior.
Although the final results will not be known for some days yet, the right-wing bloc - Conservatives, Liberals, Christian Democrats and ultra-conservatives of the SD - would have 176 MPs out of the 349 seats in the Riksdag, Sweden's unicameral parliament. In this bloc, the most important detail is that the SD has won 20% of the votes, making it the second political force in the country and overtaking the Moderate Party, which has remained at 19%. Its leader, Ulf Kristersson, is therefore the big loser, since in the negotiations to form a government his leadership is being contested by the leader of the SD, Jimmie Akesson, who in these elections has broken the "cordon sanitaire" in which the other parliamentary forces had enclosed him.
The personal triumph of the head of government, Magdalena Andersson, and her Social Democratic Party, with 30% of the vote, is not enough, in coalition with the neo-communists of The Left, the Green Party and the Centre Party, to achieve a majority in the Riksdag. Right now it would be within three seats, but the bloc has such large cracks in its ability to form a joint programme for government that it is difficult to see how such large differences can be bridged in order to gain power. In this respect, Sweden, like its Nordic partners, has not yet embraced the thesis of agreeing to do whatever it takes, whatever the cost and whatever it takes to enjoy the sweetness of power.
The neo-communists of The Left, for example, maintain their fierce opposition to Sweden's accession to NATO, and have not ceased their continuous attacks on the social democratic leader "for the concessions granted to Turkey", thus paying the price for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's lifting of his veto, a thinly veiled allusion to Sweden no longer being the European country in which the largest colony of exiles from Turkish Kurdistan takes refuge.
No less important are the SP's differences with environmentalists and centrists, on issues ranging from how to deal with the current energy crisis to police and prison treatment of those responsible for the numerous shootings that have spread across a country that was once an oasis of tolerance and tranquillity. The 47 deaths recorded in the spate of such incidents over the past year are the subject of lively debate and controversy, of which the most political mileage has obviously been gained by the SD, an unambiguous advocate of "tough on criminals". Jimmie Akesson's discourse has gone further, linking the massive influx of migrants and refugees to the crisis of the welfare state, the breakdown of the nation's social cohesion and even the proliferation of imported problems. In this respect, it is not a minor proposal that it wants to impose the refusal of asylum in the case that the person seeking asylum "has created the problem himself in his country of origin, for example, by declaring himself a member of the LGBTQ community".
Among those who still do not accept the lifting of the "cordon sanitaire" on SD, some voices advocate a German-style coalition between social democrats and moderates. This seems rather unlikely, but nothing should be taken for granted. The main aim of the right-wing bloc's pre-election pact was to unseat Magdalena Andersson as head of government. Consequently, joining the Social Democrats would leave the Conservatives at their mercy, and the field freer than ever for Jimmie Akesson's supporters.
The negotiations to form a government in Sweden after the 2018 elections lasted almost half a year. Given the current scenario, it is not unreasonable to think that the new government in Stockholm will take even longer to be formed.