STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s national election results showed a dead heat on Sunday, with a partial count by the election authority indicating a one-seat majority for the opposition center-left bloc that could halt the Nordic nation’s drift away from its liberal heritage.

The bloc, headed by the Social Democrats’ party leader Magdalena Andersson, was expected to win 175 seats in the 349-seat parliament, the Riksdag, based on votes from 4,853 of Sweden’s 6,312 election districts, the election authority said.

The right-wing governing bloc of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was seen winning 174 seats, with ballot-counting continuing.

In a big surprise, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats lost support for the first time since it entered parliament in 2010, with 17.7 percent of the vote according to an initial count, down from 20.5% in 2022.

“Of course it’s a bit of a disappointment that we are not the second-biggest party anymore in these polls. But it’s still not finished, it can still change,” Julia Kronlid, a Sweden Democrat member of parliament, told AFP just after exit polls had shown the party retreating.

The election, while unlikely to change the course of Sweden’s pro-Western and pro-Ukraine stance, will decide whether Kristersson’s push toward a hard-right clampdown on migration continues.

Given the closeness of the race, the winner may not be known for several days, after all overseas ballots have been counted.

In a pre-election pledge, Kristersson broke a longstanding taboo and said he would bring into government the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party with roots in the Nazi fringe, as he aims to create a majority-right........

© The Times of Israel