Sweden's Green Party clears parliamentary threshold in new poll
Sweden’s Green Party has cleared the parliamentary threshold to enter parliament for the first time since December, in a new poll for state broadcaster SVT, giving the left-wing bloc a slender lead ahead of the the coming election.
According to the August poll by Novus, 5.2 percent of eligible voters now plan to support the party, up from 3.5 percent in the July poll.
This is the first time the party has been over the four percent parliamentary threshold in a Novus poll since December last year, and puts the four parties supporting Magdalena Andersson to stay on as prime minister ahead of the four right-wing parties backing Ulf Kristersson, with 49.8 percent of the voter compared to 48.6 percent (1.6 percent say they will vote for other, smaller parties).
The party's leader, Märta Stenevi, credited the party's uncompromising stance on the climate for the jump.
"Over the past half year, it's been extremely clear that there is only one party in Swedish politics which is ready to prioritise the climate issue for real," she said.
Torbjörn Sjöström, the chief executive of Novus, however, put the rise down to tactical voting from supporters of other left-wing parties.
“We are seeing a clear movement from the Left Party and Social Democrats to the Green Party,” he said. The main explanation is that they see no alternative: if the Green Party falls out of parliament, then it won’t be possible to have a Social Democrat-led government.
Both the Social Democrats and the Left Party have lost support in their current poll, with the Social Democrats down 1.1 points at 30.6 percent and the Left Party down 1.6 points at 7.2 percent.
The poll also saw a 1.2 point rise in support for the populist Sweden Democrats, which put them neck and neck with the centre-right Moderate Party, with both having the backing of 18.6 percent of voters.
Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, a politics professor from Gothenburg University, said that there was a risk that this would undermine tactical voting for the Liberal Party from Moderate-Party supporters, putting the party again at risk of dropping beneath the four percent threshold.
"If they notice that the the Moderates are at risk of losing their position as the biggest party in the bloc, its likely that they will shift their voting intention away from the Liberal Party and back to the Moderates," he said.
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According to the August poll by Novus, 5.2 percent of eligible voters now plan to support the party, up from 3.5 percent in the July poll.
This is the first time the party has been over the four percent parliamentary threshold in a Novus poll since December last year, and puts the four parties supporting Magdalena Andersson to stay on as prime minister ahead of the four right-wing parties backing Ulf Kristersson, with 49.8 percent of the voter compared to 48.6 percent (1.6 percent say they will vote for other, smaller parties).
The party's leader, Märta Stenevi, credited the party's uncompromising stance on the climate for the jump.
"Over the past half year, it's been extremely clear that there is only one party in Swedish politics which is ready to prioritise the climate issue for real," she said.
Torbjörn Sjöström, the chief executive of Novus, however, put the rise down to tactical voting from supporters of other left-wing parties.
“We are seeing a clear movement from the Left Party and Social Democrats to the Green Party,” he said. The main explanation is that they see no alternative: if the Green Party falls out of parliament, then it won’t be possible to have a Social Democrat-led government.
Both the Social Democrats and the Left Party have lost support in their current poll, with the Social Democrats down 1.1 points at 30.6 percent and the Left Party down 1.6 points at 7.2 percent.
The poll also saw a 1.2 point rise in support for the populist Sweden Democrats, which put them neck and neck with the centre-right Moderate Party, with both having the backing of 18.6 percent of voters.
Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, a politics professor from Gothenburg University, said that there was a risk that this would undermine tactical voting for the Liberal Party from Moderate-Party supporters, putting the party again at risk of dropping beneath the four percent threshold.
"If they notice that the the Moderates are at risk of losing their position as the biggest party in the bloc, its likely that they will shift their voting intention away from the Liberal Party and back to the Moderates," he said.
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