1.45pm. That's all from me for this live blog. We'll be back on Election Day, this Sunday, with a new live blog. Until then, click here for all our election news, guides and analysis.
And thank you as always for reading The Local. If you're not yet a member, now is the perfect time to join us.
12.15pm. The Swedish Election Authority has finally published a list of the polling stations and times that may have been affected by a technical glitch which saw several votes counted in error.
You should check the list to see if you cast an early vote at these specific polling stations at the times in question.
If you know that you did this, you should vote again at your designated polling station on Election Day. Then that vote will simply replace your early vote.
Note that you should not vote a second time before Election Day, as doing so will invalidate all your early votes.
Thirteen municipalities are still being investigated, so the list could be updated.
Here's a list of municipalities that are NOT affected.
12.00pm. I am for the last time before Election Day live in the comments under this article to answer members' questions about the Swedish election.
11.45am. If this year's Swedish election is about anything, it's about how much money various parties are promising to put in voters' wallets. The Local's Richard Orange has listed the tax cuts (and tax increases) promised by the various parties which might affect foreigners in Sweden.
11.30am. Spare a thought for the speaker who will have to try to see if any of the party leaders can actually form a workable coalition after the election. But would you fare any better? Have a play around with The Local's election game to see if you can build your own coalition. It's a bit like Fantasy Football for nerds.
11.00am. So the election results usually come at some point around midnight on Election Day, and the party leaders usually declare their intentions in speeches at around 1am.
But then what happens? The Local explains the three key scenarios.
10.00am. Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch accused her right-wing allies of subjecting her party to "mudslinging and nonsense" in recent weeks.
Busch took to social media on Thursday, pointing to a polls showing she enjoys the highest voter trust among Sweden's party leaders.
"It means a lot to me, especially coming after weeks of attacks from both Moderate and Sweden Democrat representatives. People have been spreading outright falsehoods about the Christian Democrats in speeches, on social media, and during door-knocking campaigns," she said.
The rift within the so-called Tidö coalition opened up after Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson accused Busch of flirting too heavily with the Social Democrats.
"We will not support Magdalena Andersson or become a sidekick to the Social Democrats," Busch stressed, reiterating that she has no intention of "sulking in a corner" in the event of an election defeat or a national crisis.
"I find it a bit strange that our loyalty is being questioned simply because we put Sweden's best interests first."
Ahead of Thursday evening's party leader debate on TV4, Busch's Tidö colleagues commented on her attack.
"I do no such thing [sling mud]. We cooperate brilliantly, have done so in government for four years, and as party leaders for nine years. I trust Ebba Busch completely," said Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
"There is no mud-slinging from our side. I don't know what she is referring to this time," said Åkesson, but added that he still believes Busch is too vague regarding the question of potential government coalitions after the election. "Yes, it's presumably deliberate on her part. That seems to be the strategy the Christian Democrats have used throughout this entire campaign, and it's been very successful for them," he said.
9.20am. The opposition left-wing bloc's lead has narrowed to just 3.2 percentage points and the Liberals are over the parliamentary threshold, in yet another poll showing the right-wing bloc rapidly catching up.
Here's an important caveat though: more than 2.7 million people have ALREADY voted. And as I saw that political scientist Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson told the TT news agency yesterday, usually only 10,000 people vote again on Election Day (even if you've taken part in early voting you can vote again on Election Day – that vote then replaces your previous vote), so a big chunk of the election result is already settled.
He also said that it's a bit of a myth that the early voters are those who have already known a long time who they're voting for. It's actually the opposite: those who are committed to a party are usually the ones who tend to dress up and vote on Election Day, because they see it as tradition to vote on the day. So that means that parties are unlikely to sway many of those who haven't yet voted in the election.
I was very pleased when I read that, only for the reason that I had just made the same point on our Sweden in Focus podcast! Clearly newspapers should invite me as a political expert, haha.
9.00am. Good morning! This blog is a bit of an experiment to see if you'd be interested in receiving your general news like this throughout the day in the future as well. So please let me know what you think.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH
1.30pm. More than 2.7 million voters have already cast their ballot, an increase of 25 percent compared to last time.
The Swedish Election Authority has published a list of municipalities that are NOT affected by a technical glitch which led to some 400 votes being counted in error.
So if your municipality is on that list (which is still being updated) you do not need to worry.
If you think you may be affected, you should not vote again before Election Day, because then your vote will be invalidated. But you can vote again on Election Day, and then that vote counts.
That's goodbye from me for today. I'll be back again tomorrow morning.
12.40pm. This week we've been turning the spotlight on the two parties most likely to shape Sweden’s immigration policy after the September 13th election. On Tuesday we heard from Ida Karkiainen, the centre-left Social Democrats’ immigration spokesperson. And yesterday we published a conversation The Local's Richard Orange had with her counterpart in the far-right Sweden Democrats, Ludvig Aspling.
Have a listen and let us know what you think.
12.38pm. The Sweden Democrats have launched another political initiative targeting pedophiles, signing an "agreement" with Dumpen, a website dedicated to exposing pedophiles.
Their leader, Jimmie Åkesson, held a press conference in Linköping yesterday alongside representatives from Dumpen.
A "crime prevention agreement" signed by Åkesson and Dumpen contains 20 points that the organisation believes are necessary to protect children.
"The vast majority of pedophiles do not act on their disorder until later in life, so there is an opportunity to catch them early," Åkesson was quoted by the TT news agency as saying.
Dumpen divides opinion to say the least. Sara Nilsson, its publisher, was convicted of gross defamation earlier this year after the site published details alleging a named man had sought sexual contact with a fictional child. The Sweden Democrats covered Dumpen's fines and legal costs at the time.
During the election campaign, the Sweden Democrats have also put forward proposals for a state-run interactive pedophile map and pardons for individuals who have outed convicted pedophiles online.
12.30pm. I just had a long discussion with my colleagues Richard Orange and James Savage about Swedish politics in our Sweden in Focus podcast. It should be out tomorrow, so keep an eye out wherever you listen to podcasts.
There has been good news for the government in a new poll on party leader popularity. Voter support for Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson is now down at the same level as that for Moderate Party leader and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. And the most popular leader of all is Ebba Busch, leader of the Christian Democrats. Andersson has usually been the most popular leader, so this is concerning for her.
9.00am. Good morning! The immediate answer to the question "who will govern Sweden after September 13th" is pretty obvious: the Tidö coalition will continue to formally govern until the next government is formed and can take over. That could take days, weeks or even months. But then, who will govern Sweden? Right now, it's very much up in the air.
In just a few weeks, the Liberals have jumped from 1.9 percent to 5.8 percent in a brand new Novus poll. I've said before that the centre-right bloc's chances in the election may come down to whether or not the Liberals manage to clear the four percent parliamentary threshold.
Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson believes she would be able to form a centre-left government, but she will have her work cut out for her. In her camp she's got the Left Party, who will bring down any government without Left Party ministers, and the Centre Party, who will bring down any government with Left Party ministers. You see the problem? Andersson doesn't. She told a televised debate organised by public broadcaster SVT last night that she believes those ultimatums may not be as firm after the election. "I've been in politics for a long time, and I've seen ultimatums come and go," she said.
Is she right? Only time will tell.
I'll be recording our Sweden in Focus podcast this morning, so you're not going to get many updates from me before lunchtime. Speak later.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10TH
1.30pm. Election Day isn't even here yet, but almost 2.1 million voters have already voted, up from almost 1.6 million at the same time before the 2022 election. Just to remind you, here's how to vote in advance.
And with that I'm putting the blog to bed for today. I'll be back again tomorrow morning with the latest updates. Thanks as always for reading!
1.15pm. I've been getting a lot of questions today about what the various parties stand for, so I thought I'd point you in the direction of our in-depth guides. In order of size:
12.20pm. I am, as usual around this time of the day, live in the comments under our Members Q&A article to answer your questions about the Swedish election. Join me there?
11.40am. Did you watch the immigration debate on SVT on Sunday? The Local's James Savage did, and he writes it showed that immigration isn't a straightforward vote-winner any longer. But by focusing almost entirely on refugees, the debate managed to ignore the people who actually migrate to Sweden in the 2020s. Here's an excerpt from James' analysis, but I recommend reading the whole thing:
Immigration policy is no longer just a fight about who can be toughest – that's a big change. But the debate was stuck in a misconception of what immigration to Sweden looks like today.
About 23,500 people came to Sweden last year on a work permit or as a dependant of someone on a work permit. 3,500 came as asylum seekers, excluding the 9,300 Ukrainians who came under the EU's temporary protection directive. Around 25,000 came as family members, many of them family members of Swedish citizens (some of them Swedish citizens with immigration backgrounds, many not).
You wouldn't have guessed this by listening to Sunday's debate, which barely discussed any other form of immigrant than refugees, or the families of refugees.
And as readers of The Local know too well, labour immigration hasn't been plain sailing these past few years: these immigrants have been hit by their teenage children being deported, by retroactive changes to work permit salary threshholds and to citizenship rules, that have made some reconsider their choice of moving to Sweden. They also pay significant amounts in tax. The Centre Party's Niels Paarup-Petersen briefly managed to squeeze in a line about how Sweden needs to "bring people here who make us richer", but he was practically alone in doing so.
The immigration debate might be more nuanced than before – but it's a surreal debate badly in need of an update.
11.00am. Following the dramatic drop in the Pisa test results for Swedish pupils, the Liberal Party wants to put a total stop to individual screens in schools.
They're calling for an end to personal laptops and iPads, where pupils are given their own device to use as they please.
The party is also inviting all parties on the parliament's education committee to cross-party talks.
10.30am. We've been interviewing foreigners voting in the Swedish election for the first time in a series of articles. Here's the latest interview with Karolina Pudlo from Poland, who explains why she left the Moderate party over transitional rules for citizenship.
9.42am. Marcus Öhrn, the singer who fronts Jimmie Åkesson's election campaign dansband Åkezzonz, sells anti-Semitic white power music through his record label "No Shame", the Dagens ETC newspaper has reported.
"This is a huge hypocrisy from a party that claims to have come to terms with its Nazi past," the Social Democrats' party secretary Tobias Baudin told TT.
Through the company, Öhrn sells Nazi music, both used CDs and new releases. Over the weekend, the company has, among other things, posted several titles on Tradera that, according to ETC, are so grossly hateful that they are prohibited from being sold on the international music site Discogs.
As well as fronting Åkezzonz, Öhrn played in a band with Åkesson, played at his wedding, and co-wrote the Fröken Snusk song Så länge mitt hjärta slär with the Sweden Democrat leader.
Öhrn's record company also releases records with famous Swedish Nazi musicians and with lyrics by Per Engdahl, founder of the Nazi-linked New Sweden Movement in the 1930s.
Öhrn told ETC that he had accidentally acquired a box of white power records in a record exchange. “I am neither racist, fascist nor Nazi”, he wrote to the newspaper.
9.10am. Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist is prepared to bring down Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson as prime minister if the Left Party is allowed into a government.
She said yes when asked by public broadcaster SVT if she would rather trigger a snap election. "We have a firm no to the Left Party in government, yes," she said.
After the election, the speaker of parliament will have four attempts to find a PM candidate with enough support in parliament. If those attempts fail, an extraordinary election must be held within three months.
Thand Ringqvist is hoping for a centrist government alongside the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Christian Democrats.
When pressed on how that would work, given that Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch has explicitly rejected such a coalition, Thand Ringqvist suggested that Busch has frequently spoken about taking responsibility. "I see her taking responsibility in a way that today is clearly much broader than what she has said previously," she said, pointing out that a future government coalition is not set in stone.
Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar has previously pledged to bring down any government that doesn't include Left Party ministers.
The Social Democrats may end up needing the support of both the Left Party and the Centre Party to form a government, so solving this conflict will be tricky to say the least.
9.00am. Good morning, how are you? I decided to go for an early morning walk but got caught out in the rain and came home soaked. But here I am at my computer again.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8TH
1.30pm. Thank you for reading The Local today. This blog is a bit of an experiment, so I'd love to hear how you're enjoying it and what more you'd like out of it. I'll be back again tomorrow morning.
12.45pm. There's been a lot of talk about how many ministerial posts the Sweden Democrats might get in a right-wing government. But Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch just came out and said she refuses to negotiate before Election Day. "A blue-yellow government could in theory consist of four, three, two or one parties. For me it's not a given that the Sweden Democrats should have any ministerial posts at all," she wrote on X.
12.40pm. I mentioned my colleague Richard Orange's interview with the Social Democrats' migration spokesperson, Ida Karkiainen, yesterday. Here is is now in podcast format.
12.20pm. The party leaders' reactions to that Pisa survey I mentioned earlier are really "tell me there's an election without telling me there's an election".
Education Minister Simona Mohamsson, of the Liberals, blamed screens as "the poison in our society, both inside and outside the classroom".
Social Democrat opposition leader Magdalena Andersson said it was proof the government had failed to provide adequate resources, phase out screens, or keep class sizes down.
The Left Party took a swing at Sweden's "free-school market experiment" as the root cause.
No points for guessing who Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson blamed. He wrote on X that screens and profit-making schools were just "excuses because people refuse to acknowledge the core problems", pinning the blame on immigration. "Language is a basic prerequisite for learning, and unless we tackle this issue, we will never see a significant improvement in Pisa results," he wrote.
12.00pm. I am once again live in the comments under this article to answer members' questions about the election and Swedish politics. So far I've had questions about party funding, transitional citizenship rules, how to vote and much more.
11.50am. We're a small team, so for obvious reasons most of our focus is on the national election rather than deep dives into the local and regional elections in Sweden's 290 municipalities and 21 regions. But we have put together this guide to the main issues in Stockholm's regional and local elections for those of you voting in the capital. Remember that EU citizens and non-EU citizens who've lived here over three years are eligible to vote in the local and regional elections, even if you're not a citizen.
11.20am. Some of my favourite articles I've worked on this election are my interviews with readers voting in Sweden for the first time. I just published a new one with Warren O'Neill from Ireland, who called on Swedes to try to have a more open discussion about politics.
What's struck me about these interviews is the really, really, really conscious effort everyone's made to inform themselves about the different parties before deciding who to vote for, whether that's been by reading about them on The Local, filling out the valkompasser in the Swedish media, going to events or scouring the party websites.
I guess people who opt to be interviewed for a series like this probably skew towards those who are interested in politics, but it's still always encouraging to see people being active citizens – and disproves certain decision-makers' insinuations that foreigners treat the Swedish citizenship as just a scrap of paper, when in fact, in my experience, people take it very seriously.
10.15am. Wow. In every election you talk about the X factor, that event no one predicted but has the potential of determining the outcome.
The Pisa results, released just now, could be that. They show that Swedish pupils have never before been as poor in mathematics, reading comprehension and science in any Pisa survey in 25 years. And one in three 15-year-olds in Sweden can now only manage to read the most basic texts. Those are shocking results and a stark warning to the Swedish education system, although results did drop across the board in the OECD.
It's the kind of bad news that always rubs off the most on the sitting government, so you can bet that the opposition will jump at the opportunity to talk about it.
10.00am. A victory in the election is "within reach", Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson told TT in an interview, while promising a pension for working people during the next parliamentary term.
In the interview, Andersson argued that the business community should be more worried about a government including the far-right Sweden Democrats than about a government led by her.
"They [the Sweden Democrats] have no policies for growth or jobs. And they are opposed to the new technology that, among others, the Wallenberg family has invested in," Andersson told TT, referring to comments by Jacob Wallenberg, chairman of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise and a leading figure in the country's most powerful business-owning family, about the Swedish election in the Financial Times.
Wallenberg said there that tax proposals and proposals for shorter working hours and for a billionaires tax from one or more left-green parties were "deeply concerning".
"Anyone who has followed me during my years as finance minister and prime minister knows that we pursued economic policies that were good for Sweden and for the business community," Andersson said.
9.15am. Swedish businessman Robert Weil has weighed into the debate on whether a centre-left victory would be bad for business, after both the chair of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, Jacob Wallenberg, and the co-founder of Spotify, Martin Lorentzon, warned of introducing measures such as a billionaire tax, with the latter threatening to leave Sweden if that happens.
"How can you sound the alarm over a Centre Party and Social Democrats that are so explicitly focused on business and growth? Parties that want to secure long-term energy agreements and foster innovation so that Sweden can once again lead the pack? Instead, you – and all of us – should back this brand of politics, which provides a framework where Swedish enterprises can genuinely continue to thrive," writes Weil in Dagens Nyheter.
"What we should actually be discussing are the risks of an ethno-nationalist and authoritarian brand of politics where the migration issue is allowed to dominate at the expense of other vital matters and interests. Where does such a policy lead? What will happen to businesses' need to secure skilled workforce, and how will capacity for innovation be affected? What happens to the climate for enterprise and long-term growth when the very principles and institutions upon which our democracy rests are chipped away?"
We also got some reader comments (scroll down to the comments to join the conversation).
Johnnemann writes: "A billionaire tax is not just about raising money – it's about removing the corrupting influence of too much money from society. The very fact that people like this are weighing in on how people should vote should be a red flag – why should Wallenberg have more of a voice than anyone else? It would be good for Sweden if the billionaires left. Trust me, this country would be much worse if it turned into the situation we have in the US, where a tiny minority of rich people drive policy for millions."
And Proctor writes in response to Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon: "As a researcher and creative worker in the cultural field, I hope it is not lost on people that the co-founder of a streaming service literally built on extracting value from underpaid musicians should arguably not have moral standing to complain about such tax proposals. I find it infuriating that such an artist-exploiting model as Spotify made these guys billionaires in the first place, and that they then turn around and think they can avoid paying taxes the same way they've avoided paying most of the people who create the content that made them rich.
8.45am. Good morning, hope you're having a good Tuesday! To catch you up on some of the main stories overnight, there's another new poll out (they come in pretty quick succession these days) by Ipsos on behalf of DN, giving the Liberals 3.5 percent, which is the highest they've had in that poll. So essentially, that's another poll now suggesting that the Liberals are in fact clawing back support in the run-up to the election.
At the same time, the Social Democrats are continuing to lose support, falling to 27.1 percent.
The centre-left opposition is still in the lead, with 52.7 percent compared with 44.9 percent for the Tidö parties.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH
1.30pm. I'm putting the election blog to bed for today. I'll be back again tomorrow. In the meantime, there's lots more to read on www.thelocal.se.
1.20pm. Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon said he plans to leave Sweden if the Left Party and the Green Party get their way with a proposal to introduce a billionaire tax.
"I prefer to stay in Sweden and start new companies here. But if a billionaire tax becomes a reality, I will unfortunately have to move abroad," Lorentzon told business daily Dagens industri in a written comment, quoted by TT.
A number of prominent business figures have recently stepped into the election debate to warn of the consequences of an extra tax on billionaires, including the chair of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, Jacob Wallenberg.
"Today, entrepreneurs and business builders come here because we have a unique climate for investment, creativity, and expertise. A billionaire tax, as discussed in the election campaign, would drive both people and investment away from here," multi-billionaire Lorentzon wrote to Di.
What do you think? Would a billionaire tax be good or bad for Sweden?
1.10pm. Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson gave a press conference in Nyköping today, at which he pledged to give Sweden the lowest immigration rates and the cheapest fuel prices in the entire EU.
Fuel prices will be the "highest priority in all budget negotiations", according to their party manifesto. And the far-right party also wants Sweden to grant the lowest number of residence permits in the EU during 2027.
"Now that the asylum acceptance is near zero, we will strive for as little migration as possible," the party writes in its manifesto, which was presented today. "The party in Sweden is over; Sweden is no longer a free-for-all where you can arrive and live on benefits," the TT news agency quoted Åkesson as saying.
12.42pm. As we reported earlier today, Gustav Gellerbrant, head of the "coordination office" where Sweden Democrat officials examine the priorities of the government, has handed in his security pass and laptop to the government offices to go on parental leave, after concerns were raised that his Russian partner, who had allegedly spent around a decade sharing Russian propaganda and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin on social media, could constitute a security risk.
This could potentially become a problem for Prime Minister and Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson, who in the event of an election win will most likely invite Sweden Democrat ministers to join his government, and obviously doesn't want any claims of security risks to rub off on him.
12.10pm. The Local's Richard Orange has done an in-depth interview with the Social Democrats' migration spokesperson, Ida Karkiainen. They spoke about, among other things, transitional rules for citizenship and their plans to launch a fast-track investigation into residency for people who have lived in the country for a long time in a bid to solve teen deportation and Brexit cases. You can read the interview here.
12.00pm. I'm answering readers' questions about the election in our Members Q&A. Join me there?
11.13am. One caveat when we're talking about the polls is that a lot of Swedes have actually already voted, more than 1.4 million in fact. It looks like we're heading toward a new record for early voting. In 2022, 48.16 percent voted before Election Day.
You can still change your mind and vote again on Election Day, but I'm not sure a lot of people actually do that unless something big happens. Then again, we may still have a lot of undecideds among those who haven't voted.
So how do you vote in advance? Here's The Local's guide to early voting in Sweden.
10.30am. The Left Party has crossed eight candidates off its ballots after they shared anti-Semitic, pro-Russian and hateful views, writes the Expressen newspaper.
All of them were running for local councils and one of them for parliament.
The Left Party has previously crossed 25 people off its ballots after similar incidents this year.
Formerly communist, the Left Party has tried to rebrand itself as a regeringsduglig party ("fit to govern") in Swedish. But it's going to be tricky for Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson to build a coalition, as one of her other potential coalition partners, the Centre Party, staunchly refuses to be in a government together with the Left Party, who they view as too extreme.
9.50am. The Swedish Election Authority has confirmed that a maximum of 500 early votes have been incorrectly registered, quelling fears that 4,000 votes risked being invalidated after voters were incorrectly registered twice or had their vote registered to another voter. That's out of more than 1.4 million early votes. The authority told the TT news agency it will release a list tomorrow of what voting stations and times are affected.
9.35am. I'm not only going to report on the horse race politics, I promise, but there's big news today as the Liberals have cleared the parliamentary threshold in a new Novus poll.
It's the first time since 2022 that the party has reached above four percent in the voter barometer, report Göteborgs-Posten and TV4 Nyheterna.
In the poll, the Liberals receive 4.3 percent, which represents a rise of one percentage point compared to Novus's previous survey for TV4 Nyheterna and GP.
The polling period ran from September 1st to September 5th, and the shift in support for the Liberals is statistically significant. A total of 2,888 people were interviewed.
In the Novus poll, the Tidö parties – the Moderates, the Liberals, the Christian Democrats, and the Sweden Democrats – gather a combined 47.9 percent.
The Social Democrats, the Left Party, the Green Party, and the Centre Party receive a total of 50.3 percent.
This is significant because whether the Liberals stay in parliament or drop could could be crucial for the right wing's chances of remaining in power.
9.30am. Hello and welcome to The Local's live blog of Election Week!
On Sunday, September 13th, voters will go to the polls to cast their votes in three elections: national, regional and local. But actually early voting kicked off on August 26th and more than 1.4 million people have already voted.
Perhaps you're one of them, or perhaps you're not. But regardless of whether or not you can vote, here at The Local we believe that you have the right to be kept informed and heard in the public debate on the issues that matter to you, so we'll be posting all the key election updates here between 9am and 1.30pm Monday to Friday (and of course on Sunday, the big day).
I'm Emma Löfgren and I'm the editor of The Local Sweden – please feel free to introduce yourself in the comments and let me know if you'll be following the Swedish election. Our journalists will also answer your questions every day in a Members Q&A about the Swedish election – click here.
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