Jag hoppades att någon (vem vet vad de talar om) skulle göra detta.

(He wrote, in his Google© validated terrible "Swedlish".)

The Valmyndigheten (Election Authority) has an English web site available.

Welcome to the Election Authority´s web site in English! Here you will find a selection of information and material especially produced in English to provide an overview of Swedish elections and election administration.

Recent polling by Synovate - a global marketing firm - is reported in The Local:

Together, the four parties of the Alliance increased their support by 2.1 percent to 50.5 percent, according to the latest Synovate poll, which were published on Friday in the Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Sydsvenskan newspapers.

At the same time, combined support for the Red-Greens dropped by 2.7 percent to 42.2 percent, with all three parties which make up the coalition - the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Left Party; all losing support.

Meanwhile, the far-right Sweden Democrats saw their support rise by 1.3 percent to 6.0 percent, which is a statistically significant increase.

The Local is also reporting:

Sofie Jakobsson of Borgholm [a local Christian Democratic politician] on the west coast of the island of Öland announced on Thursday that she supported the introduction of municipal or state-controlled brothels in Sweden, naming it one of the top three political issues that are most important to her on her website.

Other Christian Democrat candidates and Party officials have run away from her and her announcement so fast you can see the dust rising from Denmark.  

"What she said in the survey is in no way sanctioned by us," Mikael Almqvist, the top Christian Democrat delegate on the ballot, told local newspaper Ölandsbladet on Thursday. "This is the private person Sofie Jakobsson who spoke on behalf of herself and not the party.

Arne Sjögren, the third delegate on the Christian Democrat ballot, also rejected her statement.

"This did not seem well thought out at all," he told Ölandsbladet on Thursday. "I think she regrets it."

Further to the Right a ... unique ... development:

Pia Kjærsgaard, the leader for the Danish People's Party (Dansk Folkeparti) has accepted an invitation from the far-right Sweden Democrats to take part in an election rally in Högänäs in southern Sweden on Saturday.

May be I just fell off the lefse, ligonberry, and lutfisk delivery van but International Solidarity and Co-operation between nationalist parties seems a wee tad 'against The Point & Purpose' of a nationalist party.

Or, to quote Crazy Horse, "Or not."

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

I like to think of Sweden as the great precursor. In terms of social relations (men/women), economy, ecology, education, social welfare... at least 95% of humanity have a great deal to learn from Swedish example. Until relatively recently, I would have been optimistic about the hypothesis that we are all, more or less, on a catch-up trajectory ... I'm afraid all bets are off in that respect.

Still. Red-greens! The future of humanity.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

For the second successive Sifo survey, which is published by the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) daily, the Alliance claimed an absolute majority with 51.7 percent of the vote, with the centre-left trailing with 42 percent, an increase of almost 2 points.

The Alliance has Sweden's female voters to thank for the boost, SvD reported, with the centre-right enjoying the backing of 52.8 percent of the female voters, to 43.9 percent for the centre-left, a reverse of the situation in the spring.

"Generally speaking women are interested in welfare issues, but the Red-Greens have not managed to get the election campaign to be about welfare," said Toivo Sjóren at Sifo to SvD.

Here's the story in Svenska Dagbladet:

Stark ledning för alliansen

Den borgerliga alliansen leder med nästan 10 procentenheter över de rödgröna, enligt SvD/Sifos mätning en vecka före valet. Socialdemokraterna ligger kvar på en historiskt låg nivå samtidigt som Miljöpartiet också tappar stöd. Även Centern backar, medan Kristdemokraterna har en säker uppgång.

This paragraph jumped out to me (apologies for the 'Swedlish'):

Is this the most elementary blunder a political party can make?  Did they try to 'move center' to pick-up votes shedding a greater number from their loosely attached constituency?

One other thing to note.  In the US, and I'm going to assume it's the same in Sweden, hard right parties tend to poll lower than their actual vote; people don't want to 'out' themselves as a bigot.  Thus, they lie to pollsters.  IF this is true in Sweden, and we won't know for a week, the Sweden Democrats could pick-up as much as 2% and possibly even 3% - depending on how far Right the election swings -  over their polling numbers making them A Player in forming the new government.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Steady poll lead continues for Alliance".

The centre-right Alliance's steady poll lead continues, with a new voter survey published on Wednesday giving them support of 49.8 percent of the voters. Support for the far-right Sweden Democrats also reached new highs.

Support for the centre-left Red-Green coalition came in at 40.9 percent, according to the poll, carried out by Synovate and published in the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper.

The Sweden Democrats saw their support go from 6 percent last week to 7.5 percent, the party's highest level of support so far in a Synovate poll.

"Future surveys will determine if this is a randomly high result, but with a margin of error of 1.5 percent upwards and downwards, the Sweden Democrats are now between 6 and 9 percent," Synovate analyst Nicklas Källebring told DN.

And if the Synovate results correspond to the actual election results, the Sweden Democrats would find themselves with 27 seats in the parliament, making them the third largest party after the Moderates and the Social Democrats.

As last night's US primaries and the rise of the Swedish Democrats show a nativist Populism backed by millions of advertising/propaganda is a vote catcher.  The global financial meltdown is starting to have political consequences.  Unless the Left gets serious about addressing the deep problems the 'Washington Consensus' has created we're going to find ourselves right back in the 19th Century with nationalistic governments clawing at each other for Spheres of Influence.  That's a winning answer for the oligarchy; not so much for the rest of us.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre