Swedes seem to be giving up on small ‘conservative’ parties

In Sweden, the Christian Democrats (KD), the Liberals (L) and the Centre Party (C), are all in a tight race ahead of this summer’s EU elections, according to a compilation by Omnipoll based on three EU election polls conducted in recent weeks.

To get a seat in the European Parliament, a Swedish party must get 4% of the vote – and according to the compilation, KD ends up with 3.5, the Liberals with 3.6 and the Center Party with 4.2 percent – just above the threshold.

– This is a serious situation for all small parties. It would be a loss of prestige to lose their seats in the European Parliament and a sign of weakness ahead of the next parliamentary elections, says Demoskop polling director Johan Martinsson to Omni.

He also points out that the EU elections are different from the parliamentary elections and that the small liberal parties can no longer count on the support of, for example, conservative voters.

– It is not at all possible to rely on support votes in the same way as in a parliamentary election, he says.

– Support votes cannot be counted on in the same way as in parliamentary elections, he says.

(S) – biggest as usual

The three polls on which the compilation is based were conducted on April 30 (Indikator Opinion), May 2 (Novus) and May 5 (Verian). A total of almost 6800 Swedes were interviewed.

As usual, the Social Democrats (S) are expected to be the largest party with 30.8% of the vote, while both M and SD are far behind with around 18%.

Falling out of the EU Parliament would be especially hard for the Liberals, who for many years have profiled themselves as Sweden’s most pro-EU party.