As the country of 9 million went to the polls yesterday, people reflected on the most important election for many years. After almost a century of Social Democratic rule Sweden has been known around the world for its excellent health service, education and social services. In 2006 the people, disillusioned with a Social Democratic party that was moving further to the right and becoming increasingly more corrupt, the right wing block popularly known as the Alliance got elected for the first time since the early 1990's. At the head of the alliance stands the Moderat Party (Moderaterna), a neoliberal party that has to sometimes speak left to keep their support.

Surviving the economic crisis with only minor problems have meant that the right could build an election campaign claiming their economic policy superior.
Though those minor problems have shown to be extremely important. As unemployment have reached almost 10% (not 7.8% as claimed in the Irish Times), young people are the ones sufferring the most. In this scenario stirring up racial hatred and anti-immigrant ideas can be an easy task. And the party called the Swedish Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) have done just that. Their background is in neo-nazi organisations, but they have taken off the boots, grown some hair and put on suits. They claim to not be racists, while you can easily find Youtube footage of their members singing neo-nazi songs. As the approach of the mainstream political parties has been to debate with the fascists or to ignore them, but not fight them, they have succeeded to break the 4% margin and have now 20 seats in parliament.

Though yesterdays victory for the Alliance is bittersweet, as they do not have a clear majority unless supported by the Swedish Democrats. The leader of the Moderat Party Fredrik Reinfeldt has said they will not rely on co-operation with or support from the Swedish Democrats, but that they will look for another partner. The only one possible would be the The Greens (Miljopartiet), though it looks difficult to achieve as their leader Maria Wetterstrand have firmly said that a co-operation with the right would be a betrayal of their electorate as they were part of the left-green block during the election campaign.

All the votes have not been counted yet, but no major change will take place at this stage, so it looks like Sweden will join those other countries in Europe and the world with hung parliaments and an uncertain future.

Photo: Anti racist demonstrators in Malmo outsie a rally last week by the Sweden Democratic Party. (Johan Bävman for the International Herald Tribune)