Sweden voted in an election pitting the incumbent centre-left Social Democrats against a right-wing bloc that has embraced an anti-immigration stance.
Opinion polls predicted a razor-thin lead for Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democrats and an allied left-wing bloc after a campaign dominated by rising gang shootings and soaring electricity prices.
Polling stations opened at 8am (06:00 GMT) and closed at 8pm (18:00 GMT) with final results expected to be announced shortly thereafter.
An opinion poll published at the weekend by the Aftonbladet newspaper saw Andersson’s camp at 49.6 percent of the vote and the conservative bloc, which includes the far-right Sweden Democrats at 49.4 percent of the vote.
With steadily growing numbers of shootings unnerving voters, campaigning saw parties battle to be the toughest on gang crime, but surging inflation and the energy crisis in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine have increasingly taken centre stage.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/11/swedish-election-completely-even-as-far-right
