Before the parliamentary elections in Sweden this Sunday, only a few thousand votes separate the political blocs in polls. An opinion poll commissioned by the newspaper "Aftonbladet" saw Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson's camp around the Social Democrats on Saturday at 49.6 percent and the conservative-right bloc including the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats at 49.4 percent of the vote. Based on the turnout in 2018, the camps were only separated by around 13,000 votes.

"It's completely balanced," said Karin Nelsson, head of the polling institute Demoskop. It could fall to both Andersson and her challenger Ulf Kristersson to form the next government. As after the last election in 2018, it looks like it will be very difficult to form a government.

Polls agree: the outcome is open

The election barometer of the public broadcaster SVT painted a similar picture: Andersson's left-wing block was last at 49.7 percent, Kristersson's camp at 49.4 percent. A recent poll commissioned by the daily newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" puts Andersson's camp at 50.0 and Kristersson's at 48.2 percent.

Andersson is currently leading a minority social-democratic government that needs the support of the liberal Center Party, the Left and the Greens in the Riksdag in Stockholm. At the top of the conservative bloc are the moderates around party leader Kristersson. In the past term of office, he has for the first time shown himself open to pursuing common politics with the right-wing populists. There is a good reason for this: the Sweden Democrats are predicted to have more than 20 percent of the votes and thus more than the moderates - without the resulting mandates, Kristersson should have no chance of becoming prime minister.

Aftonbladet SVT-Wahlbarometer Dagens Nyheter