General election
Sweden’s election thriller: Is the Abba hit enough to bring good luck?
Updated September 14, 2026 – 2:13 p.mReading time: 4 minutes
The election is over, the drama continues: The Social Democrats in Sweden won the most votes. It remains to be seen whether there will be a change of government in the Scandinavian country.
After the parliamentary election in Sweden the race for power is not yet decided. The Social Democrats will probably be the strongest force – and their political camp of center-left parties can probably win a narrow majority in parliament. But top candidate Magdalena Andersson faces a number of obstacles when it comes to forming a coalition. And: not all votes have been counted yet. The conservative head of government Ulf Kristersson has therefore not yet given up hope of being able to remain in office. Then the right-wing populists could become part of a coalition for the first time.
Who is the election winner now?
So far, 94 percent of the votes have been counted. According to the current figures, the Social Democrats received the most votes with 28.1 percent.
Andersson had received support from the Swedish music nobility on election day: Abba singer Benny Andersson had rewritten the chorus of the famous song “Mamma Mia” to “Magdalena” at a campaign event. A video from the Social Democrats showed Andersson playing the Abba hit and the election campaigners enthusiastically belting out: “Magdalena – here I go again, my, my, how can I resist you?”
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After the election, it can now be debated whether the prominent support was effective: Compared to 2022 (30.3 percent), the Social Democrats are likely to have to accept losses.
As things stand, they and three other center-left parties that support Andersson are ahead of the conservative head of government’s party alliance with just three seats: With the Left (8.2 percent), the Greens (6.1 percent) and the Center Party (7.1 percent), the Social Democrats have achieved a wafer-thin majority of 176 out of 349 seats – compared to 173 for the government parties and right-wing populists. The victory is not yet in the bag. In addition, there is by no means pure harmony in Andersson’s camp.
How did things go for the government and the right-wing populists?
Kristersson’s conservatives were able to gain slightly compared to 2022 (19.1 percent) and have so far reached 19.9 percent. Things also went better for the Christian Democrats (6.2 percent) and Liberals (5.4 percent), with whom Kristersson has governed so far, than in the last election.
For the Sweden Democrats, on the other hand, it was a bitter evening: they have so far received 17.6 percent and will probably have to cope with a decline in a parliamentary election for the first time ever (2022: 20.5 percent).
Four years ago, the taboo was broken when the right-wing populists emerged as the majority procurers of the conservative government for the first time after the election. At that time they had become the second strongest force – now they will probably have to give up this place again to Kristersson’s party. The Sweden Democrats did not become part of the coalition.
