Ballot irregularities fuel uncertainty over Sweden’s election result

[Hannah Bell]

Although the final result from Sweden’s 6,063 electoral districts was declared on Thursday, the outcome of the September 19 vote remains in dispute. The rightwing Alliance, composed of the Liberal, Moderate, Christian Democrat and Centre parties, fell just two seats short of an overall majority in the Riksdag (Parliament), gaining 173 seats in the 349-seat legislature. The opposition Red-Green coalition, made up of the Social Democrats, Greens and Left Party, obtained 156 seats, while the far-right Sweden Democrats entered parliament with 20 seats.

The margins in several districts were so small that the Liberals are said to be preparing an appeal. Overall, the Alliance is estimated to have been 297 votes shy of an overall majority. In Värmland, the Liberals missed out on a seat by just seven votes, while in Göteborg fewer than 200 votes denied the Alliance from an additional seat. The possibility of several dozen votes altering the election result and handing an overall majority to the Alliance has led to a focus on reported ballot irregularities across the country...

This task is assuming increased urgency. Whilst all of the parties conducted their election campaigns on the basis that Sweden had avoided the worst of the global economic crisis and was returning to solid growth, prolonged political instability in the current international climate would prove dangerous. As Bruno Waterfield wrote in the Telegraph, “Sweden has now become the third previously stable Western European country since June to be without a governing majority after elections marked by the rise of far-right, anti-immigrant or separatist parties”. He described the electoral result as an “unprecedented breakdown of the Swedish consensus model of politics”...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/swed-s27.shtml