After an exciting evening last night, the preliminary results in the elections to the European Parliament finally came. And it offered many surprises – both to the right and to the left. Ulf Kristofferson, political commentator, summarizes the election’s winners, losers and why it became sensational.
SD’s loss
– It was an incredibly exciting vigil and there were a lot of sensations. For example, that the Sweden Democrats ended up in fourth place, that they are backing down for the first time in an election. In opinion polls, it looked like they would come second in this election as well. But they didn’t, they backed down considerably.
Good numbers for the left wing
– And that it went so well on the left side. The left party made a great choice. Even the Green Party, which is actually bigger than the Sweden Democrats in this election. And the Social Democrats succeeded in their goal, to reverse the downward trend. Now they increase slightly in an EU election, previously they have backed down in every EU election.
Cheers and opinion polls
No party seems to be out of the picture and at all vigils except for the Sweden Democrats, the result was cheered – even though several parties lost against the last election.
– It was because it had looked much worse in the opinion polls. Apart from the result itself, one can draw the conclusions that opinion polls cannot be trusted, at least when it comes to EU elections. Because nobody predicted a result like this, not even close to it, says Ulf Kristofferson.
The Moderates second largest party
– It is very important for Ulf Kristersson. Because it was a big debacle for the Moderates in the Riksdag election that they lost that position to the Sweden Democrats. They have been told all the time from the opposition that the Sweden Democrats are the leaders in that government base. The Social Democrats repeatedly talk about an SD government. That this is not repeated in the EU elections is an important mark for the Moderates.
The Christian Democrats’ successful solution
The Christian Democrats lost a mandate – but still cheered.
– It’s because it looked like it was going much, much worse. It was extremely difficult with this battle between Ebba Busch and Sara Skyttedal, and Sara Skyttedal started Folklistan with the aim of taking the voters of the Christian Democrats. It obviously didn’t work out so well and the top candidate the Christian Democrats got instead of Sara Skyttedal, Alice Teodorescu Måwe, meant a lot. After all, she has filled the suit and perhaps it landed well for the Christian Democrats that it was not Sara Skyttedal but that it was Alice Teodorescu Måwe. It seems to have been a very successful solution.
Today 08:47