STOCKHOLM — Millions of Swedes will vote in a tense general election on Sunday that is set to deliver a new left-wing government or bring far-right ministers into power for the first time. 

The Social Democrat-led left bloc enjoyed a comfortable lead for months but polls tightened significantly in the final two weeks of the campaign, with one 11th-hour survey suggesting a dead heat. 

“Two or three weeks ago, we were saying this is a done deal,” said Gustav Karreskog Rehbinder, who is running results forecasts for Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT on election night. “Now it seems that it will be a more exciting night than expected.”

The vote will have potentially significant consequences for security in Europe and the wider debate over integrating the far right into mainstream politics. Here is POLITICO’s guide to the contest, the candidates and the countdown to declaring a winner.

How does the election work? 

There are 349 seats in the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament, which is located in an imposing waterside building on an island in central Stockholm. 

The country chooses its lawmakers every four years using a proportional representation voting system, meaning that if a party gets about 20% of the votes across Sweden, it will have about 20% of the seats in the Riksdag. Coalitions are the norm.

But there’s a catch: Very small parties are eliminated and get no seats at all if they do not meet the minimum threshold for support of 4% of the national vote. This could be a vital element in a closely fought contest, when the smaller parties may hold the balance of power. 

Nearly 8 million people are registered to vote and turnout tends to be high — more than 80%. This year, a record number of people are expected to have cast their ballots early, which they’ve been able to do since Aug. 26. If they change their minds, these early voters can vote again on Sunday, canceling their original choices. Regional and local elections take place at the same time.

Who gets to govern? 

After the last contest in 2022, eight parties were elected to parliament and they have been fighting this summer’s campaign in two blocs — one on the left and one on the right. 

That means there are only two realistic candidates to be prime minister: the incumbent, conservative Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson; and Magdalena Andersson, the former PM who leads Sweden’s biggest party, the center-left Social Democrats. 

Swedish Prime Minister and Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson speaks to the media upon arrival to a televised election debate hosted by TV4 in Stockholm, Sweden, on September 10, 2026, three days ahead of the country’s general election. | Jonathan Nackstrand/ AFP via Getty Images

Kristersson has run the right-wing coalition for the past four years thanks to influential support from the second biggest party, the far-right Sweden Democrats. They backed him in votes in parliament and drove policy in a hardline direction, including crackdowns on crime and especially immigration. But the Sweden Democrats did not join the coalition cabinet. That could now change. 

Can the far right enter the government?

Kristersson divided opinion in 2022 when he broke a decades-long taboo against working with the far right and did his deal with the Sweden Democrats, who had won 20% of the vote. The SD was founded in the 1980s and some members in those days had roots in neo-Nazi movements. The party has taken steps to clean up its act in recent years, though not to everyone’s satisfaction. 

Now Kristersson says he will give the SD ministerial seats in government if his side wins on Sunday, as part of an agreement with the far-right leader, Jimmie Åkesson. That would be another huge step for Sweden and one that the opposition has seized on. 

“Of course this would be a different country with a government with half of the ministers from the Sweden Democrats,” opposition leader Andersson told AP recently. “It would not be good for Sweden if they would get the keys to the ministry of defense or the ministry of foreign affairs.” 

Kristersson insists he would still be in charge overall. He points to his work with Åkesson over the past four years which he says has revived the economy and cut rates of violent crime and immigration, both of which had been major public concerns. “I can guarantee you that it will only be very skilled and experienced and people with good judgment that would be part of my government,” he told POLITICO. 

For his part, Åkesson says it’s time for the SD to take the next step and assume the responsibility of governing. He is eyeing up the chance of becoming prime minister himself at the next vote, due in 2030. The SD sums up its vision for the country with the phrase: “Sweden should be safe, free and Swedish.”

What is at stake for Sweden and Europe? 

Apart from the question of far-right power — which is a political preoccupation across the continent, especially after recent state elections in Germany — both the left and right leaders have traded blows on the question of security, and who will be strongest in standing up to Russia. 

In a POLITICO interview Andersson demanded that Kristersson come clean after it was claimed that an SD official allegedly promoted pro-Russia narratives and linked up with a Russian state group inside Sweden. For his part, Kristersson in his own POLITICO interview questioned the left bloc’s commitment to NATO, which Sweden has only been a member of for two years. 

Tim Ross/POLITICO

One thing unites both candidates for prime minister: continuing Sweden’s support for Ukraine. In its long history, Sweden has been at war with Russia multiple times and the threat Moscow poses is seared into the national consciousness.  

Otherwise, the campaign focused on consumer politics — helping ease the cost of living and improve Sweden’s famous welfare state. The two sides made competing promises of a better deal on taxes, housing, health and dental care costs, as well as warnings over the impact of their rivals’ migration policies. 

When will we know who has won? 

Swedish broadcasters will release exit poll findings when the voting ends at 8 p.m. local time on Sunday.

Karreskog Rehbinder said he hoped to be able to give an early indication on SVT of how the election will unfold once 10% of the votes have been counted, which he expects to be around 9.15 p.m. 

If the final tally is extremely close and it’s not clear which side is ahead in the first hours after the voting ends, he said it would likely not be clear until all the counting has finished — which isn’t expected until Wednesday 16 Sept. or later. 

The Swedish Election Authority usually publishes “an initial provisional allocation of seats” in the Riksdag at around 10.30 p.m. on election night, if enough voting districts have reported their results by then.

But even once the final results are known, it will take weeks or perhaps even longer before a new coalition is formed. And if the parliament cannot ultimately agree on a new prime minister, a fresh election could be called.

Parties on the right are largely settled in their so-called Tidö alliance — named after the castle where their agreement was signed in 2022. But there have been deeper splits between some of the smaller parties in Andersson’s left bloc, which could prove a challenge to her attempt to stitch together a majority government. 

“If you look at the prediction markets and polling aggregations, they say exactly the same thing — there’s about a 70% probability of a left-wing win, which is of course much narrower than it was three weeks ago,” said Karreskog Rehbinder, who is the founder and CEO of political tech startup Vera Policy. “That would still be my best guess but it is far from sure.”