Vladyslav Butenko argues that the results of the 2026 Swedish general election – a narrow-margin win for the 'red-green' bloc – signals not so much a retreat of the far right as how completely its policy agenda has already won. The real challenge for the centre-left now is to turn its razor-thin majority into a new political course
Sweden’s 13 September election produced a barely visible gap between the country’s two blocs. The centre-left 'red-green' alliance took 176 seats in the Riksdag against 173 for the governing right – the exact reverse of the 2022 outcome – on a record turnout of 84.9%. Centre-left leader Magdalena Andersson had been racing to form a government before the 28 September deadline – a race she lost. The headline is that the Sweden Democrats lost ground for the first time since entering parliament. Looking closer, though, these little changes hardly affect the mechanism of governing the country.
The Social Democrats, led by Magdalena Andersson, won 28.02% of the vote – their worst result in a century. The Sweden Democrats, meanwhile, took 17.48%, three points down on 2022. For a party that had gained ground at every election since entering parliament in 2010, that is a real setback.
The Sweden Democrats, though three points down on their 2022 result, remain the second-largest force on the right, and we shouldn't underestimate their influence on Swedish politics
At the same time, hitting a ceiling is not the same as collapsing. The Sweden Democrats remain the second-largest force on the right, and we shouldn't underestimate their influence on Swedish politics. Under the Tidö Agreement, which underpinned Ulf Kristersson’s government, the Sweden Democrats helped push through the 'good conduct law', letting authorities refuse residence permits for reasons that have nothing to do with any crime (unpaid debts, for instance) – and revoke permits already issued. They also backed a new citizenship law that stretched the residency requirement for naturalisation from five years to eight.
Before 2022, a cordon sanitaire surrounded the Sweden Democrats. Yet despite the party’s marginalisation, its ideas were already reshaping the Swedish party system, institutionalising a harder, more populist politics. Tough rhetoric on immigrants and the tightening of migration policy are examples of the radical right’s integration into the mainstream. After the 2015–2016 European migration crisis, the Social Democrats leaned into the same issue themselves, backing and initiating restrictive measures of their own.
Despite the party’s historic marginalisation, the Sweden Democrats' ideas had already begun reshaping the Swedish party system, institutionalising a harder, more populist politics
Immigration, though, was a far less prominent topic in the 2026 election campaign than in 2022. Healthcare, education and the economy dominated instead. That doesn't mean voters care less about immigration. It means the issue has stopped being as effective a mobilising tool – above all for the Sweden Democrats, the party that built its rise on it.
Andersson’s bloc includes parties ranging from the post-communist Left Party to the market-liberal Centre Party, and their disagreements are yet to be resolved. The Left Party claims it will only support a government that includes its own ministers. The Centre Party rules that out entirely, calling talks with the Left 'pointless' unless that demand is dropped.
A three-seat majority built on parties that agree mainly on opposing the Sweden Democrats – but little else – is a fragile mandate for anything beyond continuity
Moreover, the four parties forming the red-green alliance also disagree on energy policy and taxation. The Centre Party is pro-nuclear and market-friendly, while the Left advocates for the introduction of a wealth tax. Altogether, a three-seat majority built on parties that agree mainly on opposing the Sweden Democrats – but little else – is a fragile mandate for anything beyond continuity.
That fragility became clear within two weeks. Instead of supporting a Social Democrat candidate for parliament speaker, the Left Party chose to support a Moderate candidate instead. On September 28, at a press conference, Andersson said that there was 'no possibility' of forming a government at that point.
We should not read the election results as a wholesale swing to the left. The decline in the Sweden Democrats’ standing stems, first, from the party’s weakening as an anti-establishment force and its transformation into a de facto establishment actor. Second, the restrictive migration policy once championed by the Sweden Democrats alone now enjoys support across the mainstream.
Whoever ends up governing will face the same underlying choice: keep deepening that restrictive turn, or start testing how far it can be loosened without reopening the divisions that produced it in the first place. For now, Sweden remains without a new government. The speaker must decide who to task next, most likely Kristersson, whose own bloc is still two seats short of a majority. The political situation remains uncertain for Andersson and the Social Democrats, but the argument over migration, crime, and who belongs was effectively won before a single vote was counted.
