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Far-right climbs over pirates in May poll

Paul O'Mahony
Paul O'Mahony - [email protected]
Far-right climbs over pirates in May poll

Despite its recent success in the European Parliament elections, the Pirate Party would garner fewer votes than the far-right Sweden Democrats if a general election were held today, according to Statistics Sweden's biannual party preference survey.

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The statistics agency's poll puts the three-party red-green opposition 3 percentage points ahead of the centre-right governing coalition. Together the Social Democrats, Left Party and Green Party scored 48.3 percent.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's Moderate Party (29.9 percent) has however gained major ground on Sweden's largest party, the Social Democrats (36.6), since the last Statistics Sweden poll in November. But the Moderates' coalition partners in the Liberal Party, Centre Party and Christian Democrats have all seen their support wane.

Both the Sweden Democrats and the Pirate Party would fail to obtain the 4 percent support necessary to gain a place in parliament were Swedes to vote in an election this week. The nationalist Sweden Democrats scored 3 percent in the agency's random poll of 9,211 people registered to vote. The poll was carried out from April 28th to June 1st.

The Pirate Party, which rocked the establishment in the recent EU elections, would fail to make a similar impact in a general election, according to the poll. The party led by internet rights activist Rick Falkvinge would only claim between 2 and 2.5 percent of the vote in a bid for a place in the Riksdag.

May voter preference survey, percent per party (results for November 2008 in parentheses). Source: Statistics Sweden

Moderate Party 29.9 (24.8)

Centre Party 5.5 (5.9)

Liberal Party 5.5 (6.0)

Christian Democrats 4.3 (4.5)

Social Democrats 36.6 (42.3)

Green Party 6.0 (6.1)

Left Party 5.7 (5.7)

Others 6.4 (4.7)

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