The Year the Overseas Votes Decided the Election

On Monday, it became clear that only tens of thousands of votes separate the two blocs. Despite most of the votes being counted, it is still impossible to determine who will gain power after this year’s election.

In the preliminary distribution of seats, the opposition holds an advantage with 176 mandates against 173 for the Tidö bloc. But the margins are slim and every change in the vote count can have a major impact on the final balance of power.

And the drama is not over. On Wednesday, the votes that have not yet been included in the preliminary results—such as overseas votes and late advance votes—will be counted. This could mean that the distribution of mandates is redrawn at the very final stage of the election.

There is also a recent example of how significant the final vote count can be. After the 2022 election, the final seat allocation ended up with 176 mandates for the Tidö parties and 173 for the opposition. The ongoing vote counting then contributed to a change in the distribution of mandates compared to the initial preliminary situation.

This year, the initial state is at least as nerve-wracking. About 30,000 votes separate the blocs, and the seat balance stands at just three mandates.

Historic SD Campaign

Before the election, the Sweden Democrats made a historic effort to target the group of Swedes abroad who can vote—a group that is at a record high this year: over 220,000 individuals.

The party sent representatives to the Spanish Costa del Sol and tried to reach Swedish voters in Thailand and other parts of the world.

However, in the 2022 election, only 32 percent of this group voted, but their votes usually represent an advantage for the right-wing side.

C: We Will Not Abandon S

At the same time, the Centre Party has now thrown itself into the government drama. The party has announced that it is ready to form a government together with the Social Democrats—a statement that could be decisive if the current seat allocation remains intact.

C’s party secretary Hannes Hervieu wrote to TV4 that the party wants to see an effective government with a clear centrist profile. At the same time, the Centre Party is signaling against both a leftward economic shift and significant influence for the Sweden Democrats.

The announcement comes after a morning of silence from the Centre Party. Previously, the party has said no to both SD and the Left Party, which makes C a potential kingmaker in the extremely tight parliamentary situation. During election night, C leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist also opened up to a centrist government with S and KD.

At the same time, the Centre Party wants to wait for the final election results before any real negotiations begin. Therefore, Wednesday’s vote counting could become absolutely decisive in determining who will have the opportunity to form a government base.

Decisive in 1979

There are also historic examples showing that the last votes can actually decide a Swedish parliamentary election. After the 1979 election, it was unclear for a long time which side would gain the majority. When the last votes were counted, it became evident that one seat had changed sides.

The bourgeois parties finally ended up with 175 seats against the Social Democrats and VPK’s 174. The late votes thus proved decisive for who gained the majority in the parliament.