Contrary to political pundits' expectations that the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) would win every election, the party lost seats in the country's 2024 European Union polls after early Monday results showed it received slightly more than 13% of the vote but finished fourth.
The SD, the second largest party in the Riksdag, Sweden's legislature and supreme decision-making body, received 13.2% of the vote, according to preliminary results.
For the populist SD leader Jimmie Akesson, it was the first time he faced an election loss.
“We need to think about why we are not growing but only keeping our three mandates. The last month has been tough for our party. We are not the party that sits down and says sorry just because someone thinks we should do it,” local newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) quoted Jimmie Akesson as saying at his party's election vigil.
Before the election, the question was whether SD could repeat its Riksdag 2022 victory over the right-wing Moderates in this year's European election.
However, SD finished fourth and was defeated even by the Green Party.
The Green Party is one of the biggest winners in the EU elections as it surprised almost everyone by receiving 13.8% of the vote.
According to DN, former spokeswoman Isabella Lovin can now return to Brussels alongside the top two candidates, Alice Bah Kuhnke and Par Holmgren.
The Left Party secured 10.9% of the vote, becoming the party with the greatest increase in support since the previous EU election. Jonas Sjostedt, the former party leader, has been the obvious draw for the party, and he can now return to his seat in the EU Parliament, which he held from 1995 to 2006.
“We are tonight's election winners,” Sjostedt summarized the election results.
The Social Democrats had high expectations for the EU elections, and they lived up to them owing to their strong trust in party leader Magdalena Andersson. It received 24.9% of the vote, up from 23.5% during the previous European election.
“It feels very, very good. We also see how strong it is for the red-green parties in Sweden, while our main opponent has backed down,” Social Democrat's leader Andersson was quoted as saying by the media outlet.
The Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Left Party together managed to secure almost 50% of the votes and if the Center Party is also included, the opposition parties, the opposition parties got nearly 57%.
