After eight years of conservative government under prime minister Fredrik Reinfeld, Swedish voters decided this week that their dalliance with the centre-right had gone on long enough. Mr Reinfeld's conservative Moderate Party saw its share of the vote fall by almost 7 per cent, leaving it 8 points behind the Social Democrats, who have dominated Swedish politics for most of the past century. Widely viewed on his election in 2006 as a breath of fresh air who would shake up Sweden's centre-left consensus with more business-friendly economic policies, Mr Reinfeld failed to deliver many of the improvements he promised. As the gap between rich and poor widened, Sweden's educational standards deteriorated and structural reforms failed to boost employment, so that the jobless rate today is actually higher than it was eight years ago.
The Social Democrats' leader Stefan Löfven faces a steep challenge as he seeks to form a government, however, falling well short of a majority even with the support of the Greens. Mr Löfven is seeking broad support, talking to a number of smaller parties, including some that formed part of Mr Reinfeld's alliance. He has ruled out any co-operation, however, with the biggest winners of this week's election, the far-right Sweden Democrats, who saw their share of the vote more than double to almost 13 per cent, making them the third largest party in parliament.
Founded in 1988, the Sweden Democrats have moved away from the overt neo-Nazi ideology of their early years to adopt a more sanitised image similar to that of Marine Le Pen's National Front in France. They still campaign against immigration and multiculturalism, leading the opposition to Sweden's generous asylum policy, which has seen the country grant automatic residence to all refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria. All of Sweden's mainstream democratic parties agree with Mr Löfven that the far-right should be frozen out, a strategy that has proved more effective than accommodation elsewhere in Europe.