··

God Morgon

Geopolitics · Europe · Sweden · Türkiye · the economy
Background

The Swedish general election of 13 September 2026

Sweden elected 349 members of the Riksdag on 13 September. The Social Democrats, the Left Party, the Centre Party and the Greens took 176 seats to 173, and Ulf Kristersson resigned as prime minister on 17 September. A month later there was still no government: on 15 October the Riksdag rejected Magdalena Andersson as prime minister by 248 votes to 99.

The Left Party, the Centre Party and the Greens cast 75 of the votes that stopped Magdalena Andersson becoming prime minister on 15 October. A month earlier the three had won a majority alongside her Social Democrats, 176 seats to 173. Three more rejections would send Sweden back to the polls.
The Swedish general election of 13 September 2026

Sweden voted on 13 September for the Riksdag, for 21 regional assemblies and for 290 municipal ones. The Riksdag's 349 seats are shared out in proportion to votes, but only among parties that win four percent nationally or twelve percent in one constituency. The threshold is why seats can move further than votes. Ulf Kristersson had governed since 2022 with the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals, kept in office from outside by the Sweden Democrats. Those four are the Tidö parties.

The Liberals spent the year below the threshold: 2.2 percent with Novus in June, 1.9 with Verian in August. They cleared it on election day with 5.3 percent and 19 seats, three more than in 2022. The blocs converged as they rose: Verian had the opposition 10 points ahead in August. In the preliminary result the Social Democrats came first on 28.0 percent, and the two blocs were 0.7 points apart, our sum of the parties' shares. The news agency TT put the opposition's lead at 50,359 votes.

Some overseas ballots are counted only on the Wednesday after election day, and that count moved a single seat: the Left Party gained one and the Social Democrats lost one, both inside the winning bloc. The 176 to 173 split therefore stood from election night. The Election Authority certified the final result on 19 September, with turnout at 84.9 percent against 84.21 in 2022. Kristersson resigned on 17 September and stayed on as caretaker prime minister. The new Riksdag met on 28 September and re-elected Andreas Norlén as speaker.

Finding a prime minister is the speaker's job. Norlén asked Andersson to sound out the parties about a government, she handed the job back on 28 September, and on 2 October he asked her again. On 13 October she told him she saw no point in carrying on with the talks for now. He proposed her to the Riksdag the same day, as prime minister of a government of Social Democrats alone. The Riksdag voted on 15 October: 99 for, 248 against, two absent. The 99 were the Social Democrats' own.

The 248 included the three parties she needs for a majority. The Left Party and the Greens named her as their candidate and said they would not let through a government they were not in. The Centre Party said it could even let an all-Social Democrat government through. It wanted growth-friendly policy anchored in the centre, and said that was missing. A fourth rejection would force an extra election. This was the first. The Riksdag's own notice said Norlén would discuss with the other party leaders how the process should go on.

2.4jan2.1feb2.3mar2.9apr2.4maj2.2jun
Support for the Liberals in the Novus voter barometer, January to June 2026 · percent of the vote in that month's poll · Source: Novus
The threshold for entering the Riksdag is 4.0 percent. All six points are in Table 2 of Novus's own June report, which lists the barometer month by month on the question "How would you vote if there were an election to the Riksdag today?". Fieldwork ran 7 to 18 January, 2 to 15 February, 14 to 18 March, 6 to 19 April, 4 to 17 May and 1 to 14 June 2026. The number of respondents varies a great deal, from 2,188 in March to 5,962 in June, so the early months are less precise than the late ones. Novus puts the margin of error for the Liberals in June at ±0.4 points and reports no statistically significant change for the party in any month from January to June, so the month-to-month movements should not be read as real swings. The distance down to the threshold is another matter: in both March and April Novus calls the Liberals statistically significantly below four percent. The July reading has no published table and is not included. Only Novus is in this series. It stops in June; the rise came in September and the party took 5.3 percent at the election.
”We vote no today, in the hope of soon being able to vote yes.”
Samuel Gonzalez WestlingMember of parliament for the Left Party, who gave his party's speech in the prime-ministerial vote of 15 October 2026

The numbers

The result: the seats and the blocs
176 seats to 173
In the election of 13 September 2026 the opposition's four parties took 176 of the Riksdag's 349 seats against 173 for the Tidö parties. The Election Authority reports Social Democrats 99, Moderates 70, Sweden Democrats 62, Left Party 30, Centre Party 25, Christian Democrats 22, Greens 22 and Liberals 19; the bloc totals are ours. A majority needs 175. In the municipalities' catch-up count the Left Party gained a seat and the Social Democrats lost one against the election-night figures, and preliminary turnout came out at 84.8 percent. The authority's board certified the final result on 19 September, with every party on the same seat total as the preliminary count and final turnout of 84.9 percent.
Valmyndigheten
The vote shares, party by party
Liberals 5.3%
Social Democrats 28.0 percent, Moderates 19.8, Sweden Democrats 17.5, Left Party 8.4, Centre Party 7.0, Christian Democrats 6.2, Greens 6.1, Liberals 5.3 and others 1.6. All eight Riksdag parties cleared the four percent threshold. Summed by bloc that gives the opposition 49.5 percent against 48.8, a difference of 0.7 points; the addition is ours. The news agency TT counted the opposition's lead as 50,359 votes.
SVT Nyheter
After the vote: the resignation
Ulf Kristersson posted his resignation letter on X on 17 September, addressed to the Speaker, Andreas Norlén: "It is now for the Speaker to lead the coming steps towards forming a new government. So that this work can begin at once, I hereby ask to be relieved as prime minister." He and his ministers stay on as a caretaker government until a new one is in place. TT wrote that day that the first attempt at forming a government was expected to go to Magdalena Andersson, and Ebba Busch objected that the red-green parties had not automatically won power. The new Riksdag met on 28 September and elected a speaker that day. Forming a government took 37 days after the 2022 election and, by TV4's count, 129 days after the 2018 one. Norlén, who oversaw that one, puts it at 134 days.
Fokus
The first prime-ministerial vote, 15 October
248 to 99
The Riksdag's fast protocol 2026/27:8 records the vote as "Votering: 99 för godkännande 248 för avslag 2 frånvarande", that is 99 for approval, 248 for rejection and two absent. Party by party: for approval 99 S; against 70 M, 62 SD, 29 V, 25 C, 22 KD, 21 MP, 19 L; absent 1 V and 1 MP. The no votes from the Left Party, the Centre Party and the Greens add up to 75, which is our own sum. Under chapter 6, article 4 of the constitution the speaker submits the candidate for prime minister, and the proposal is rejected if more than half the members vote against it, meaning at least 175. Under article 5 the procedure is broken off once the Riksdag has rejected the speaker's proposal four times, and ordinary elections come every four years, so a fourth rejection would mean an extra election within three months. This was the first rejection.
Sveriges riksdag
The first poll after the election: the Liberals below the threshold again
Liberals 3.7%
Verian's voter barometer for SVT, fielded from 28 September to 11 October with 3,067 interviews, gives the Moderates 22.3 percent against the 19.9 the institute records for the election, and the Liberals 3.7 percent. On the Liberals: "Nedgången med 1,6 procentenheter från 5,3 till 3,7 procent är ett statistiskt säkerställt faktum", the fall of 1.6 points from 5.3 to 3.7 percent being statistically significant. The party cleared the threshold at the election by 1.3 points, and this reading puts it 0.3 below; both margins are ours, measured against the four percent threshold. Verian writes that the Moderates' rise consists largely of returning tactical voters from the Liberals, and that the Greens go from 6.1 to 7.1 percent. On the blocs: "Det är i praktiken dött lopp mellan Tidöpartierna och de rödgröna", in practice a dead heat between the Tidö parties and the red-greens.
Verian
What the election did to the Social Democrats and the Sweden Democrats
The Sweden Democrats lost voter support for the first time since the party entered parliament in 2010, from 20.5 percent to 17.5. The Social Democrats held on to first place but recorded, Al Jazeera writes, one of their worst results in more than 100 years. Al Jazeera put their share at 28.1 percent on 15 September, before the count was complete; SVT's completed preliminary count gives 28.0.
Al Jazeera
Novus in the last fortnight: the Liberals clear the threshold
5.8%
On 1 September the Liberals rose 1.4 points with Novus but were still just below four percent, and the gap between the blocs had narrowed to 2.6 points. The reading of 7 September was the first to put the party above the threshold, at 4.3 percent, with the opposition on 50.3 percent against 47.9 for the Tidö side, a difference of 2.4 points. On 9 September Novus recorded 5.8 percent for the Liberals, and Torbjörn Sjöström called the move from 1.9 to 5.8 one of the most dramatic in modern Swedish polling. The institute's last barometer before election day, on 11 September, showed the party slipping back a little.
Novus
Verian's August reading for SVT
In Verian's August reading for SVT the opposition, meaning the Social Democrats, Greens, Centre Party and Left Party, took 53.9 percent against 43.9 for the Tidö parties, a lead of 10 points. The Centre Party was the summer's winner, rising from 5.4 percent in June to 8 percent in August. The Liberals were still below the threshold on 1.9 percent.
SVT Nyheter
Novus voter barometer, June 2026
Liberals 2.2%
Social Democrats 32.6 percent, Sweden Democrats 20.0, Moderates 16.6, Left Party 8.9, Greens 6.4, Centre Party 6.1, Christian Democrats 5.6, Liberals 2.2 with a margin of error of ±0.4. The gap between the government side and the opposition was 9.6 points in the opposition's favour, against 7.4 in May. On those figures the Liberals would have taken no seats. The only statistically significant change from May was the Moderates' fall of 1.6 points. Fieldwork ran 1 to 14 June 2026 and 5,962 eligible voters responded.
Novus
Statistics Sweden's party sympathy survey, May 2026
On the question of the result if there were an election today: Social Democrats 33.9 percent, Sweden Democrats 18.3, Moderates 17.3, Left Party 8.6, Greens 6.6, Centre Party 6.1, Christian Democrats 4.5, Liberals 2.5 and others 2.0. Statistics Sweden calls its intervals uncertainty margins, and they run from ±0.5 for the Liberals to ±1.2 for the Social Democrats. Fieldwork ran from 28 April to 28 May 2026 and 4,542 of 9,260 people approached responded.
Statistiska centralbyrån
Seats, threshold and adjustment
349 seats
The Riksdag has 349 seats, of which 310 are fixed constituency seats and 39 are adjustment seats. The fixed seats are shared between the parties by the modified Sainte-Laguë method, and the adjustment seats are then allocated so that the whole is as proportional to the national vote as possible. The main rule is that a party must win at least four percent of the vote nationally to take any seats. The exception is a party that wins at least twelve percent in one constituency, which may then share in the seats of that constituency alone.
Sveriges riksdag
The starting position: the 2022 result
176 seats to 173
Social Democrats 30.33 percent and 107 seats, Sweden Democrats 20.54 and 73, Moderates 19.10 and 68, Left Party 6.75 and 24, Centre Party 6.71 and 24, Christian Democrats 5.34 and 19, Greens 5.08 and 18, Liberals 4.61 and 16. Turnout was 84.21 percent of 7,775,390 eligible voters. The Moderates, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Sweden Democrats therefore sum to 176 seats against 173 for the other four. The Election Authority also records that 41,139 people voted at embassies and consulates and that 34,731 postal votes were received from abroad.
Valmyndigheten
The eight party leaders and SVT's interviews
SVT interviewed the leaders of all eight Riksdag parties in their home towns before election day: 23 August Sölvesborg, Jimmie Åkesson for the Sweden Democrats; 25 August Gothenburg, Simona Mohamsson for the Liberals; 27 August Gothenburg, Nooshi Dadgostar for the Left Party; 30 August Strängnäs, Ulf Kristersson for the Moderates; 1 September Uppsala, Magdalena Andersson for the Social Democrats; 3 September Uppsala, Ebba Busch for the Christian Democrats; 6 September Härnösand, Amanda Lind for the Greens; 8 September Östersund, Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist for the Centre Party.
SVT Nyheter
Overseas Swedes: how many, and when their votes are counted
226,906 overseas Swedes
The electoral roll for the 2026 election held 226,906 overseas Swedes and 483,182 first-time voters, out of 8,046,725 people entitled to vote in the Riksdag election. The roll was fixed 30 days before election day. At the 2022 election, SVT says, more than 182,000 overseas Swedes were eligible and only 32 percent voted, roughly 58,000 votes. SVT writes that the number on the roll has risen by almost 24 percent, but gives no baseline year for that figure. SVT also corrected its account of the count and writes that not all overseas votes are counted on election night, some only on the Wednesday after.
SVT Nyheter
The sentencing reform: the decision, the cost and the capacity
The government's bill on a new system of criminal penalties, prop. 2025/26:297, went to the Riksdag on 30 June 2026. For multiple offending it gives additional offences greater weight in sentencing, which starts from the combined penal value of the offences the defendant is convicted of. This is what the parties call scrapping the mängdrabatt. The justice committee settled its report on 12 August 2026, and the chamber adopted the bill on 13 August, a month before the election. The amendments enter into force on the day the government decides. The government writes that the Prison and Probation Service assesses that its need for places and staff arising from, among other things, these proposals can be met in 2040 at the earliest, and it puts the service's costs at about 41.1 billion kronor a year. In the campaign the Moderates promised on 3 August to prioritise getting the change through during the next term, and the Social Democrats said on 7 August that they would start with sexual offences.
Sveriges riksdag
NATO, the defence budget and what the parties actually disagree on
The Moderates state on their own defence-policy page that the Moderate-led government took Sweden into NATO on 7 March 2024, that the defence appropriation has risen from 75 billion kronor a year in 2022 to 175 billion a year in 2026, and that Sweden should reach NATO's spending target by 2030. The Social Democrats write that they want to deepen NATO cooperation, continue military support for Ukraine, protect development aid and run an updated feminist foreign policy. The Left Party opposed membership, wants a law banning nuclear weapons in Sweden and wants no permanent bases of foreign troops. The Greens voted no, respect the Riksdag's decision, do not pursue withdrawal and want legislation against nuclear weapons on Swedish soil in both peacetime and war.
Moderaterna

What the comparison shows

Where they agree

Knutson and Sjöström started from the same place: the opposition led, and it was Kristersson who had to close the gap. He closed almost all of it, from about ten points in the summer polls to 0.7 in the count, and lost by three seats.

Where they split

Kristersson argued that support for the right would grow once the election became a real choice between two alternatives. Knutson wrote that the campaign might already be decided unless the Tidö parties pulled off a historic recovery. The gap between the blocs went from 10 points in Verian's August reading to 0.7 in the count, and the Tidö parties lost. Nobody settled the other argument, the one about the overseas vote: Oscarsson expected 70,000 to 80,000 votes from abroad and thought first-time voters mattered more, and no source here breaks the result down by either group.

What nobody is saying

Who will govern, and with whom. Norlén had set no deadline when he called the party leaders to new talks in late September, and no source here names a cabinet, a coalition or who gets the next attempt.

Who says what

Magdalena Andersson, Leader of the Social Democrats, the largest party at the 2026 election

Andersson tied her campaign to a world she called more dangerous and unpredictable than it had been in a long time, and gathered her policy into three promises: a safer, richer and more cohesive Sweden. In practice that meant stronger defence, more police and a Swedish mafia law, higher child benefit, an end to the first unpaid day of sick leave, a stop to profit-taking from free schools, and everyone learning Swedish. She avoided naming the Left Party and the Greens as partners.

Source: The Local Sweden · Monday, 3 August 2026 · Said at the launch of her campaign tour outside the party headquarters on Sveavägen in Stockholm on 3 August 2026. That she is reluctant to name the Left Party and the Greens as partners is Mats Knutson's observation in SVT the same day. We found no Swedish transcript of the speech, so no words are quoted verbatim.
Ulf Kristersson, Leader of the Moderates, prime minister from 2022, resigned on 17 September 2026 and leads the caretaker government until a new one is in place

Kristersson played down the opposition's lead in the polls and argued that support for the right would grow once voters saw what the two blocs stood for on tax, crime and migration. He called Richard Jomshof's quisling accusations distasteful and indecent in an interview with Aftonbladet, and aimed his criticism at both Jomshof and the newspaper.

”Så säger man bara inte. Man kan ha en tuff politisk debatt och diskussion även om svåra saker. Men man måste kunna skilja på sak och person, det gäller ärligt talat både Jomshof och Aftonbladet.”You simply do not say that. You can have a tough political debate and discussion, even about difficult things. But you have to be able to separate the issue from the person, and frankly that goes for both Jomshof and Aftonbladet.
Source: SVT Nyheter · Tuesday, 4 August 2026 · SVT reports Kristersson's answer given to Aftonbladet. That he plays down the lead is taken from The Local's report on the launch of the campaign tour on 3 August 2026.
Richard Jomshof, Member of parliament for the Sweden Democrats and former chair of the justice committee

Jomshof called Aftonbladet's political editor Anders Lindberg a quisling on X, hours after Lindberg posted a video saying Jomshof could become justice minister in a Moderate-led government with Sweden Democrat ministers. He defended the word by pointing out that Lindberg himself had likened the prime minister to Franz von Papen, the German conservative who, as SVT puts it, played a decisive role in Hitler's rise to power. Shortly afterwards he called Magdalena Andersson a quisling too. Lindberg replied that opinion journalism is not treason, and Kristersson, Ebba Busch and Simona Mohamsson all criticised the tone.

”De kryper ju alla för islamisterna, vars mål är att ta vår demokrati och vårt land ifrån oss”They all crawl for the islamists, whose goal is to take our democracy and our country away from us
Source: SVT Nyheter · Tuesday, 4 August 2026 · Written by Jomshof on X and reported by SVT when he extended the accusation to Magdalena Andersson. The description of von Papen is SVT's own fact box, sourced to NE and the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
Mats Knutson, Domestic politics commentator at SVT

Knutson read the position as asymmetric. Kristersson needed a game changer, an event or announcement that would turn opinion quickly, while Andersson gained most by taking no risks. He also noted that the Tidö parties' budget spending had produced no result so far, and that they were pinning their hopes on undecided voters, up to 15 to 20 percent of the electorate in early-summer polling.

”En valrörelse som redan kan vara avgjord om inte Tidöpartierna presterar en historisk upphämtning under de 41 dagar som återstår till valdagen.”A campaign that may already be decided unless the Tidö parties pull off a historic recovery in the 41 days left until election day.
Source: SVT Nyheter · Monday, 3 August 2026
Torbjörn Sjöström, Chairman of the polling institute Novus

Sjöström put the decision in the threshold rather than in the gap between the blocs. In his analysis of the July barometer he wrote that the Liberals were lower than at any earlier reading in Novus's history, that is since 2006, and that the party picking up most of their voters was the Centre Party, which sits on the other side of the bloc line. He also argued that the old tactical-vote logic of the Alliance years was gone, so the small parties had to show they were needed in their own right.

”Men oppositionspartierna har ett klart övertag över en framtida Tidöregering, särskilt om man räknar in ett L som ligger extremt lågt, 2,6 procentenheter under 4-procentsspärren.”But the opposition parties have a clear advantage over a future Tidö government, especially once you count in a Liberal party that is extremely low, 2.6 points below the four percent threshold.
Source: Novus · Thursday, 23 July 2026 · From Sjöström's signed analysis accompanying the Novus voter barometer for July 2026. The July page publishes no results table, and the method paragraph on the same page is inconsistent: it refers to the June 2026 barometer while giving the period 6 to 9 July 2026 and 5,726 respondents. We therefore read Sjöström's words as his own description and not as a published figure. He signs the analysis as chairman of Novus.
Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, Professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg

Oscarsson expected 70,000 to 80,000 votes from abroad and pointed out that first-time voters are many times more numerous. He called the 2022 election the third closest in Swedish democratic history, settled by about 46,000 votes, and said that only in a race that close could anyone point to the overseas votes as decisive, and elections are rarely that close. He described the group as very mixed, from tax exiles to students, and their ballots land in the same late pile as late-arriving early votes from within Sweden.

Source: The Local Sweden · Friday, 31 July 2026 · The Local publishes his remarks in English. We found no Swedish original wording, so no words are quoted verbatim.
Samuel Gonzalez Westling, Member of parliament for the Left Party, who gave his party's speech in the prime-ministerial vote of 15 October 2026

Gonzalez Westling said the Left Party voted no because it had to, not because it wanted to, and that a government the party supports is one the party belongs to. He explained why a no rather than an abstention: as the constitution is written, an abstention in a prime-ministerial vote counts in practice as a yes. Only the no votes can defeat the proposal. He told the Centre Party's leader that the broad centre does not exist, and pointed out that the two parties already govern together in Gävleborg. The Left Party has been a support party for decades, he said, but that time is now past, and the decision was taken by its highest decision-making body rather than by its leadership.

”Vi röstar nej i dag, med förhoppning om att snart kunna rösta ja.”We vote no today, in the hope of soon being able to vote yes.
Source: Sveriges riksdag · Thursday, 15 October 2026 · Speech 6 in the Riksdag's fast protocol 2026/27:8. The quotation is his own words in the chamber, in Swedish, and everything in the paragraph above is in the same speech. The corrected protocol appears within three weeks.

Our coverage