Sweden general election: close race as far right eyes role in government – Europe live

There are 349 seats in the parliament, so theoretically it’s a race to 175 when it comes to securing a majority in the Riksdag. But it’s a bit more complicated than that.

It’s a proportional representation system, but to get in, you need to clear a 4% threshold – and that is particularly relevant for the Liberal party, which the current PM is likely to need to stay in power.

The party long polled well before the threshold, but surged in recent days, helped by their leader’s strong performances in TV debates and what is believed to be some tactical voting among the supporters of the “blue” bloc as they want to make sure they make it into the parliament.

We are expecting eight parties to be in the next parliament and this level of fragmentation can make government formation a bit tricky at times. But in theory they are divided in two blocks – blue and red – which are expected to come to some sort of agreement, if needed.

It’s also worth remembering that Sweden has a long history of minority governments.

“Sweden has a tradition of minority governments,” Aylott explains, with the concept of “negative parliamentarism.”

“If there’s a prime minister proposed, then if there is the absence of an absolute majority in parliament against the proposal, it’s interpreted as support. So a party that doesn’t really want to give full support to this proposed candidate - maybe because it’s not going to be part of the coalition, but which can just about live with it, and doesn’t have a better alternative – it can abstain from the vote, and that’s counted as passive support. This makes it much easier to form minority governments.”

Aylott continues:

“But it’s it’s worth remembering that nearly every, almost by definition, minority government eventually rests on a parliamentary majority, and these parliamentary majorities are usually not always, but usually fairly stable.

This was the story of the last four years, with a minority government, but they had a very elaborate Tidö deal with the Sweden Democrats, which meant that there was a de facto majority in parliament.

So, minority governments aren’t as fragile, usually at least, as they look.”