Failure for the Sweden Democrats in the EU elections

With 93% of the votes counted, it is clear that the Sweden Democrats are having a very bad election. At the time of writing, they are down 2.1% from the previous election to 13.2%. This is the first time their numbers have decreased in an election.

Instead, the Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) and the Green Party (Miljöpartiet) make strong gains (+4.1 and +2.3) and get 10.9% and 13.8% of the vote respectively – the Green Party thus becomes the third largest party and, if the result holds, larger than the Sweden Democrats.

As usual, the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna) will be the largest party with 24.9% of the vote, followed by the Moderate Party (Moderaterna) with 17.6%.

Before the election, the Center Party, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals were all in danger of leaving the European Parliament – but they all seem to be holding on, with the C Party currently at 7.3%, the Christian Democrats at 5.7% and the Liberals just over the threshold at 4.4%.

The Green Party’s top candidate, Alice Bah Kuhnke, sees the result as a major victory and says Swedes want a tougher climate policy at the EU level.

– They want the EU to pursue a strong climate and environmental policy, and I also see it as a clear signal that they do not see the Swedish government pursuing the necessary climate and environmental policies.

“Strangest election campaign ever”

Jonas Sjöstedt of the Left Party is also very pleased that his party has made strong gains, going from one to two seats in the EU.

– If there had been a general election, we would have swept the board with the Tidö parties. We are incredibly happy to get another mandate. It is a left-wing wave and the bourgeois parties are retreating, Sjöstedt told the tabloid Aftonbladet.

In the Sweden Democrat’s election campaign David Lång made headlines in the state media when he sang “foreigners out” (“ausländer raus”) to the tune of Gigi D’Agostino, which was also recorded by the Expressen reporter. Otherwise, it was mostly gloomy faces and Jimmie Åkesson calls this year’s election campaign “the strangest election campaign I’ve ever seen”.

– It’s the strangest campaign I’ve ever seen. We have not been able to talk about how to improve Europe, but have had to answer completely different questions.

Low turnout

It is also worth noting that only one in two eligible Swedes (50.7%) went to the polls – the lowest turnout since 2009. However, political scientist Andreas Johansson Heinö points out that “Sweden is in line with the rest of Europe” when it comes to voter turnout, and says that many parties were very poor at mobilizing their voters – not least the SD.

There are also big differences between the sexes. If only women had voted in the EU elections, the Green Party would have won 19% of the vote and become the country’s largest party, according to preliminary election results – and if only men had voted, the party would have fallen back to around 9% instead.

For the Sweden Democrats, the numbers are the opposite – the party is supported by about 18% of men in the EU elections, but only 9% of women. Among first-time voters, the Moderates, Social Democrats and Green Party are basically equal (21%, 20% and 19% respectively).

Furthermore, none of the small parties outside the Swedish parliament seems to be close to winning a seat in Brussels, and the “other parties” seem to have a total of 2.2% of the vote.