Far Right could hold balance of power in Swedish election

STOCKHOLM: Swedes were voting last night in a tight election dominated by fears over asylum and welfare, with the populist, antiimmigration Sweden Democrats vying to become the biggest party in a country long seen as a bastion of economic stability and liberal values.

Far Right parties have made spectacular gains throughout Europe in recent years, following a refugee crisis sparked by civil war in Syria and ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and parts of Africa.

In Sweden, the influx of 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015

has polarised voters, fractured the cosy political consensus and could give the Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in the neoNazi fringe, a veto over which parties form the next government.

‘‘Traditional parties have failed to respond to the sense of discontent that exists,’’ Magnus Blomgren, a social scientist at Umea University, said.

‘‘That discontent maybe isn’t directly related to unemployment or the economy, but simply a loss of faith in the political system. Sweden isn’t alone in this.’’

The centreleft bloc, uniting the minority governing Social Democrat and Green parties with the Left Party, is backed by about 40% of voters, recent opinion polls indicate, with a slim lead over the centreright Alliance bloc.

The Sweden Democrats, who want the country to leave the European Union and put a freeze on immigration, have about 17%, up from the 13% they scored in the 2014 vote, opinion polls suggest.

But their support was widely underestimated before the last election and some online surveys give them as much as 25%, a result that is likely to make them the biggest party, dethroning the Social Democrats for the first time in a century.

That could weaken the Swedish crown in the short term, but analysts do not see any longterm effect on markets from the election as economic growth is strong, government coffers are well stocked and there is broad agreement about the thrust of economic policy.

Sweden has flirted with populism before. New Democracy, founded by an aristocrat and a record producer, won nearly 7% of the vote in 1991, promising strict immigration policies, cheaper alcohol and free parking, before crashing out of parliament only three years later.

But if the Sweden Democrats get a quarter of the vote, it would be a sensation in a country described as a ‘‘humanitarian superpower’’ by then Moder ate party prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in 2014.

It would also make them the biggest populist party in the Nordic region, topping the Danish People’s Party, which got 21% in 2015, and trump the 12.6% for the farright Alternative for Germany which swept into the Bundestag in 2017.

With an eye on the European Parliament elections next year, Brussels policymakers are watching the vote in Sweden closely, concerned that a nation with impeccable democratic credentials could add to the growing chorus of euroscepticism in the EU.