Confidence in Juholt falls further: poll

Only 12 percent of Swedes have confidence in Social Democrat head Håkan Juholt, according to a new poll showing that support for the party is continuing to dwindle.

• Social Democrats meet to decide Juholt's fate (14 Oct 11)
• Probe dropped, Juholt to remain party leader (14 Oct 11)
• How did the Social Democrats end up in such chaos? (13 Oct 11)

“We are taking this very seriously,” party secretary Carin Jämtin told daily Expressen.

In the wake of party leader Håkan Juholt's accommodation subsidies scandal and internal squabbles about the shadow budget, the party has had a tough start to the autumn.

In the latest poll from research company Demoskop, the Social Democrats only received support from 26.6 percent of voters, the worst result the party has ever received in the history of Demoskop polls.

According to survey, the support for the Social Democrats continues to be weak in the large cities and among professionals.

“The great task at hand was to regain ground among these, which just hasn’t happened. Instead they have lost support among other groups, especially women and young voters,” Demoskop CEO Anders Lindholm told daily Expressen.

Confidence in the Social Democrat party head is also at an all-time low, with only 12 percent of respondents indicating they believe in the abilities of Håkan Juholt.

Among white collar professionals, the result was even lower, at 10 percent.

As a comparison, former Social Democrat head Mona Sahlin’s worst result was a 20 percent confidence rating

Meanwhile, 58 percent of those surveyed said they had confidence in current prime minister and leader of the Moderate party, Fredrik Reinfeldt.

Lately Juholt has been touring the country trying to combat the lack of confidence following the last few months’ turbulence.

“It is going to take time to regain the confidence. People want to meet our party chairman and discuss matters with him,” Jämtin told the paper.

Despite the Social Democrats’ bad result, the opposition parties' combined 45.9 percent support nevertheless managed to close the gap with the centre-right government Alliance parties, which received combined support of 46.6 percent.