Sweden edition

Opposition hold the upper hand: poll

Published: 18 Oct 09 10:00 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/22722/20091018/

The opposition red-green coalition have the support of 49.2 percent of the Swedish electorate, an established lead over the governing Alliance on 44.4 percent, a new voter poll from Sifo shows.

Poll troubles continue for Social Democrats (5 Sep 10)
Poll: Alliance retains solid lead (1 Sep 10)
Party leaders slam opinion poll flood (13 Jul 10)

The opposition parties of the Social Democrats, Green and Left parties have increased their lead by 1.4 percentage points since the Sifo September poll and now enjoy the support of an extra 280,000 voters in comparison to the Alliance.

Both the Christian Democrats and the far-right Sweden Democrats have climbed above the 4 percent threshold needed to claim parliamentary seats at a general election, with 4.3 and 4.7 percent respectively.

The Sweden Democrats thereby achieved their strongest poll showing yet. The increase in support has come from voters which had not previously registered a preference, according to the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, which published the poll.

The far-right party has also claimed voters from both the centre-right Moderates and centre-left Social Democrats.

A further poll on Sunday however indicates that the Alliance parties have a nose in front as Sweden enters the final year before a general election in September 2010.

In the Skop poll the Alliance coalition commands a 0.7 point lead after losing 2.1 points since the last poll to 47.8 percent. The opposition have clawed back some 1.2 points in the meantime and currently enjoy the support of 47.1 percent.

"It is in practice a dead heat between the blocs," Skop's Birgitta Hultåker explained in a press release.

In contrast to the Sifo poll, the Skop survey indicates that the Sweden Democrats are below the threshold for parliamentary seats at 3.6 percent.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

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The comments below have not been moderated in advance and are not produced by The Local unless clearly stated. Readers are responsible for the content of their own comments. Comments that breach our terms and conditions will be removed.

12:57 October 18, 2009 by Ben Wallis

How are these poles conducted? If they are not anonymous then I suspect the results would be very unreliable. Many people would be unwilling to tell a stranger who they intend to vote for, especially if they intended to vote for a controversial party.

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13:42 October 18, 2009 by Jan-Bug

As if any poll's or votes are done and counted the correct way, huh? Yeah right! When the wind start blowing in the "wrong" direction you have to try and redirect it back and "stuff" has to be "fixed" so to speak. And the best way to do that is to let the "poll" talk. How stupid do they think we are?

These days nothing is done in an honest and serious manner. Moral is long gone folk's! I wonder what this country would look like if the real peoples voice was heard?

Report abuse »

16:45 October 18, 2009 by Carl

To be honest, I think it's exactly the opposite - back in the days before computers and the internet, powerful people and governments could get away with anything. These days it's much harder for anyone to keep anything a secret, and therefore more things are done right - or at least less things are secretly done wrong.

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18:17 October 18, 2009 by Gwrhyr

In the case of the first two commenters, they were just trying to downplay the poll results because they don't like the results.

Sure, polls aren't perfect. They don't claim to be (however much journalists like to use them)... but when they show figures that I don't like, I don't try to undermine the entire institution of polling itself. I just hope the tides will turn back to my side. In any case, the polls have been hovering around this close middle-ground for awhile now, so next month it could be the opposite. It doesn't really matter at all until it's much closer to the actual election.

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20:23 October 18, 2009 by justanotherexpat

Damn. Almost a year to wait until we get to vote out Reinfeldt......too long........too much damage-potential still exists......

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13:10 October 19, 2009 by Beynch

Heaven help Sweden should the marxist opposition ever gain a foothold again.

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09:05 October 20, 2009 by Tutu

Reinfelt have done so well as far as i know. when being compared with Sahlin, i think she was made a leader bc she is a woman and she lacks substance. I watched Åkesson some few minutes ago and realised that this guy is an absolute disaster. he is blaming the downfall of the economy and christian faith on muslims. The question is how many people on this forum are non church goer and are muslims. The problem is not the muslims, it is the swedes themselves. Hägglund floored him, he just kept on rabbling that the muslims killed our christain faith, stops boys and girls from swiming etc. If all muslims are banned in this country would that solve our problem. almost all are companies are owned or being taken over by foreign companies. are going to let go of saab, volvo etcf as well. we lack self esteem in our culture becase we try to copy the americans.

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13:17 October 21, 2009 by Beynch

You're wrong Tutu! I do not agree with everything coming out of SD. But Åkesson says a lot of things that need to be said, and aired in the open. One hopes that Swedes recognize this, and ensure that the 'S'-cabal is not give another chance.

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