As a result of the most recent Swedish legislative election held on 11 September 2022, a right-wing government will be formed, as the Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals secured 176 seats together with the Sweden Democrats, while the left-wing bloc has as many as 173 seats out of the total 349 in the Riksdag. One of the most exciting developments is that the Sweden Democrats have achieved a historical success with more than 20% of the popular vote and 73 seats, making them the second largest party after the Social Democrats, but ending up as the leading power of the right well ahead of the Moderate Party.
What happened at the ballot boxes? What were the key campaign issues? What comes next, when will Sweden have a new government, and will it include the Sweden Democrats? What changes can the Sweden Democrats’ electoral success bring along in the whole Swedish party system and specifically on the right? The current episode of the Votes & Seats podcast series addresses such questions. Szabolcs Janik, researcher of the Centre for Political Science at MCC had the honour to talk with Dr. Kjetil Duvold, associate professor in political science at Dalarna University.
With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.
