Scandinavian country’s 7.3 million voters go to polls on 9 September. What are the key issues?

What’s the story and why does it matter?

Sweden’s 7.3 million voters go to the polls on 9 September, electing a new parliament and government to succeed the Social Democrat-Green minority coalition of the prime minister, Stefan Löfven, which has run the country since 2014.

Current polling suggests his centre-left party will remain Sweden’s largest, as it has for more than a century. But it, the main centre-right Moderate party and their respective blocs face a major challenge to the status quo from the far-rightwing populists of the Sweden Democrats, who look set to hold the balance of power.

Although its support appears to have faded since early summer, when it led some polls with over 25% of the projected vote, the performance of the nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-EU party will – after Italy’s election of a far-right, populist coalition in March - be keenly watched across Europe.

How does the system work?

The 349 MPs in Sweden’s Riksdag are elected through proportional representation, 310 of them by the country’s 29 constituencies (each of which has a set number of seats depending on their population).

The remaining 39 are divided up so each party’s parliamentary representation more or less matches its share of the national vote. Four percent of the national vote, or 12% of a constituency vote, is needed to enter parliament.

What are the key issues?

Europe’s 2015 immigration crisis, in which Sweden received 163,000 asylum seekers (the most, by head of population, of any EU country), propelled immigration and integration to the top of the political agenda.

Although the present government has radically tightened asylum laws, the Sweden Democrats – whose roots lie in the neo-Nazi movement, but under leader Jimmy Åkesson have been mostly purged of their most openly racist elements – kept them there, hammering their core message that the country’s generous welfare state is threatened.

Sweden is also increasingly alarmed by violent crime; following a spate of gang shootings and grenade attacks, often in deprived areas with high concentrations of immigrants, masked youths last month torched more than 80 cars in Gothenburg and other west coast towns.

The party’s other main policy, holding a referendum on whether Sweden should leave the EU, has little support among voters. The economy, motoring along nicely, barely features in the debate, but after this summer’s record heatwave climate change has also become a major electoral issue.

How do things stand now?

On the left, the Social Democrats have – like many classic northern European labour parties – seen their support plummet in recent years and are now on around 25%.

But the more radical Left party, which stayed out of government last time but wants to be part of any future leftist coalition, has surged to nearly 10% from 5.7% in 2014, with the Greens holding relatively firm on over 5%.

So the combined left could hope for a shade over 40% of the vote – marginally ahead of the conservative Alliance, in which support for the Moderates has slipped to barely 18% but the free-market Centre party (10%) is well up on 2014 levels.

All parties have pledged not to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats, currently lying in second place on 19-20%. But assuming both main blocs end up on around 40%, whatever government emerges from the post-election horsetrading will need backing from either the opposition, or the far-right populists, to function.

Analysts believe that could clear a path for Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson to become the next prime minister, perhaps at the head of a single-party minority government, with ad hoc, informal support from the Sweden Democrats – for which the far-right party would expect some influence over policy.

A strong performance by the Sweden Democrats could create its own problems for the anti-immigration party, however: although it might force mainstream parties to engage, compromising on their fundamental principles for a share of power has rarely won populist parties more votes.

