By KARL RITTER, Associated Press

STOCKHOLM (AP) — An exit poll by Swedish public broadcaster SVT shows the left-leaning opposition winning the country's parliamentary election but without an absolute majority.

The SVT poll showed the Social Democratic-led bloc getting 44.8 percent of the votes, compared to 39.7 percent for the center-right alliance that's been in power for the past eight years.

A feminist party could boost the opposition bloc. The poll on Sunday showed it exactly at the 4 percent margin to enter Parliament.

The poll suggested that eight years of tax cuts and pro-market policies under Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt are likely over in Sweden.

But it would also mean that a complicated parliamentary situation looms, with Social Democrat leader Stefan Lofven likely to form a new government, but with the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats holding the balance of power in Parliament. The party almost doubled its support to 10.5 percent in the exit poll.

Reinfeldt, who took office in 2006, is the longest-serving conservative leader in Swedish history. Though he's won praise internationally for steering Sweden's economy through Europe's debt crisis in relatively good shape, many Swedes worry his pro-market policies have undermined the welfare system.

Reinfeldt's center-right coalition government has cut income and corporate taxes, abolished a tax on wealth and trimmed welfare benefits. It has also eased labor laws and privatized state-owned companies, including the maker of Absolut vodka.

Meanwhile, the gap between rich and poor has grown faster in Sweden than in most developed countries, though it remains among the world's most egalitarian, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

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AP video journalist Jona Kallgren contributed to this report.

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Karl Ritter can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/karl_ritter