Record high support for Reinfeldt as PM: poll

A poll published Monday, less than a month before the Swedish general election, showed that nearly two-thirds of Swedes support Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt to lead the next government.

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Reinfeldt, who heads the center-right coalition up for re-election on September 19th, garnered 63 percent of support in a poll of 1,000 people who were asked in which prime ministerial candidate they had the most confidence.

Only 18 percent of those questioned said they had the most confidence in his main opponent Mona Sahlin, a veteran Social Democrat who leads a left-wing bloc made up of her party, Sweden's largest, the Greens and the formerly communist Left Party.

Another 18 percent of people polled said they remained undecided, according
to the Sifo survey, published in the business daily Dagens Industri. The poll, conducted from August 16th to 19th, was the 13th identical survey conducted by Sifo since Sahlin took over at the helm of the opposition in 2007.

Monday's score was an all-time low for the opposition leader. Patrik Westander of the Westander public relations firm, which commissioned the poll, told Dagens Industri that Reinfeldt was perceived as a "calm and safe prime minister in times of global economic anxiety."

"Reinfeldt has a very strong level of personal trust among voters," he told the newspaper. "The heightened trust can probably be explained by this spring and summer's signals showing improved economic developments in Sweden."

Another survey published on Friday showed Sweden's left-wing opposition nearly neck and neck with the ruling centre-right coalition. It handed Reinfeldt's four-party government 47.8 percent of voter intentions compared with 46.6 percent for the left-leaning opposition coalition.