Poll troubles continue for Social Democrats

The Social Democrats have posted their worst poll result in 13 years just two weeks before Swedes head to the polls on September 19th.

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According to the latest survey from the Sifo polling firm, only 28.7 percent of voters would support the Social Democrats if the election were held today – the party’s worst Sifo polling result since 1997.

The figures indicate that core voters are starting to abandon the Social Democrats, according to the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper which, along with Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), presented the results of the Sifo study on Sunday.

Nevertheless, combined support for the three opposition parties which make up the centre-left Red-Green coalition increased slightly, by 0.4 percent, on the strength of a 2.1 percent rise in support for the Green Party and a 0.4 percent rise in support for the Left Party.

Meanwhile, the four parties which comprise the ruling centre-right Alliance received support from more than half of Swedish voters for the second poll in a row.

According to Sifo poll, 50.1 percent of voters support the four Alliance parties. On Saturday, a Demoskop poll put combined support for the four governing parties at 50.5 percent.

However, support for the Moderate Party dropped according to the Sifo poll, falling by 1.3 percent to 31.7 percent. Nevertheless, the poll shows that the Moderates remain the party with the highest level of support among Swedish voters.

Among the other governing parties, the Christian Democrats lost one percentage point, bringing them to within a half a percent of the 4 percent threshold to maintain representation in the Riksdag. The Centre and Liberal Parties, meanwhile, saw support increase by 1.4 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively.

And if the current poll results hold, the government won’t have to worry about the nationalist Sweden Democrats, which saw their support fall by one percent to 3.6 percent, putting the party below the 4 percent threshold.