Some are alarmed by rise of far right, others say Sweden Democrats cannot be ignored

As Swedes went back to work on Monday with their country facing weeks, if not months, of political wrangling, few of those sipping coffee at the Bröd och Vänner cafe in central Malmö seemed to have any certainty of how the country’s next government would look.

“It’s expected,” Karin Kangas, 52, who voted for the Social Democrats, said of the confused parliamentary picture. “I think it’s going to take time.”

She hoped that the Alliance bloc of centre-right political parties, which on Sunday night reaffirmed their intention to rule together, would eventually split, allowing her party to remain in power with the support of the smaller Centre and Liberal parties.

“The Alliance have already gone out and locked themselves up in a position,” she said. “But if they go out from the people’s vote, you should have Social Democrats, Centre, Liberals and Green party all working together. But it will be very hard to get such an agreement.”

Dragan Pau, 64, a builder taking a break from renovating a nearby apartment, said he doubted his party, the far-right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, had won the influence it had hoped for.

“In Sweden we live in a false dictatorship because none of the other parties will ever let the Sweden Democrats have any power,” he said, as his colleague Adin shook his head in amused disagreement. “It’s going to be the same politics, nothing’s going to change.”

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Even if the Moderate party and its allies did in the end form a government with the passive or active support of the Sweden Democrats, he said, it was unlikely it would be able to push through the heavy restrictions on immigration it desired.

“Even if the blue parties do a deal with the Sweden Democrats to take power, it will still be the same politics. Swedes are too stupid to realise we live in a dictatorship.”

Adin, who did not vote despite being eligible to do so, said he had the opposite concern, that the Sweden Democrats would in fact gain influence. “It’s not good that the Sweden Democrats have gone up so much, it’s not good for us immigrants,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dragan Pau: ‘Nothing’s going to change.’ Photograph: Richard Orange

For Jan Andersson, 69, the advances made by the Sweden Democrats overshadowed the considerable success of the party he had backed, the Left, which won 39% of the vote in the local constituency.

“It’s really upsetting,” he said. “The Sweden Democrats, they’ve divided people up into us and them. I’m worried about it.”

Like Kangas, he said he hoped the other parties would reach some sort of agreement to prevent the Sweden Democrats from gaining influence. “Now they’ve got to learn to work together. I think it’s going to be a leftwing government.”

Susanne Madsen, 61, another Social Democrat voter, was confident Sweden’s current prime minister, Stefan Löfven, would stay in place. “I think that there won’t be a shift in power,” she said. “I don’t know why I think that, but that’s what I think.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Susanne Madsen and Jan Persson. Photograph: Richard Orange

She said the result was better than she had feared for her party and its coalition partner the Green party. “I thought the Greens would be knocked out of the parliament, but they made it.”

Her partner, Jan Persson, 60, said be believed that if Sweden’s three leftwing parties had more mandates than the centre-right when all the votes were counted then the Social Democrats should lead the formation of the next government. “I think that the biggest bloc should get it, but they need to have some form of cooperation.”

Even Daniel Misik, who voted for the Christian Democrats, grudgingly accepted the principle that the bloc with the largest number of mandates should be able to form the next government.

“For now the red parties are bigger,” he conceded, but he said he hoped that the advantage would shift to the right as the last overseas and preliminary votes were counted over the next few days.

At any rate, he said, it was time for Sweden’s political parties to bring an end to their refusal to negotiate and form deals with the Sweden Democrats.

“The Sweden Democrats got almost 18%. The other parties can’t ignore them any more,” he said. “Whether they like them or not, they must sit down and talk to them.”