After Sunday’s parliamentary elections in which his left-wing party failed to gain a majority, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven invited the opposition to talks for a “cross-bloc cooperation”.
While the ruling Social Democrats remains the biggest party with 40.6 percent of the vote, the centre-right Alliance gained significantly compared to the previous election.
The centre-right Alliance gained 40.3 percent of votes in the polls.
In the 349-seat parliament, the centre-left party has 144 seats, and the Alliance has 142 seats.
The nationalist Sweden Democrats (SD) emerged as the third-largest political party with 63 seats, winning 17.6 percent of the vote. The SD party leader vowed to exert “real influence” as kingmaker.
The SD is a party with roots in the neo-Nazi movement. Compared to attaining 49 seats with 12.9 percent of the vote, the SD showed the biggest gain by any party in Swedan’s parliament, Riksdag.
The election turnout is reported at 84.4 percent, up from last year’s 83 percent.
The finalized election results are expected later in the week.
BY MSEAP Cyber Secretariat (mseap@assembly.go.kr) |
