Hej from Stockholm as the dust settles (a bit) after a hectic election night. With 95% of votes counted overnight, the left-leaning opposition bloc – led by Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democrats – has widened its lead to three seats, leading 176 to 173 against the reigning centre-right coalition and their far-right partners in Sweden Democrats. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
Formally, the result is not settled yet: there is only some 28,600 votes separating the two blocs, with 6% of the votes yet to be counted – and that includes some 200,000 votes expected to come and be counted only on Wednesday.
Still, the Swedish public broadcaster SVT said last night it was 90% confident that the opposition would clinch the victory, even accounting for all the votes yet to be counted.
There is plenty of time for early exploratory talks: the parliament won’t meet until 28 September, when its due to elect a new speaker, and any votes on who could be the next prime minister can only come after that.
But the process of forming the new government could take weeks if not months leaving Sweden in a state of political limbo at a time of unprecedented geopolitical uncertainty in Europe.
No doubt first text messages, frantic WhatsApp or Signals, and phone calls are already exchanged today.
I will be here to cover all this drama for you.
It’s Monday, 14 September 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.