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Swedish right wing bloc takes slim lead in pre-election poll

TT/The Local
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Swedish right wing bloc takes slim lead in pre-election poll
Liberal leader Johan Pehrson (left) Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson (centre) and Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch (right), during a debate in parliament this week. Photo: Jonas Ekströmer/TT

Sweden's four right-wing parties have taken a slim lead over the left-of-centre bloc in a new poll, after the Liberal Party edged over the parliamentary threshold.

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With just three months to go before the election on September 11th, the Moderates, Christian Democrats, Sweden Democrats and Liberals now have the support of 49.3 percent of voters, giving them a narrow lead on the parties supporting the current Social Democrat government, who have 48.8 percent between them. 

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The reason for the sudden lead is that the Liberal Party is now polling within the statistical margin of error for achieving parliament’s 4 percent limit, according to Novus, which carried out the poll for state broadcaster SVT. 

The Liberals now have the support of 3.5 percent of voters, the party's best result in an opinion poll in over two years.

“This means that they could have reached the parliamentary limit,” Torbjörn Sjöström, Novus’ CEO, told SVT.

The 4 percent rule applies to all parties in Sweden, and it dictates that parties will only be given seats in parliament if they achieve at least 4 percent of the vote in a general election.

"I'm extremely happy about this. I hope it generates an engagement among our members and elected politicians which will mean that we manage it," he said. 

The Green Party, however, are polling at under 4 percent for the seventh month in a row, receiving 3.3 percent of the vote in the current poll. 

“We’re not seeing an upward trend, they’re constant on the wrong side of the line,” Sjöström said. “At the same time, we can see that support for the Social Democrats has increased since the Green Party left the government.”

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