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What Sweden's tight election result means for Europe · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: People in Sweden are still waiting to find out who
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: won Sunday's national election. Ballot counting continues, with the race
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: still too close to call. The results so far give
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  Speaker 1: the center-left opposition, led by the Social Democrats, a narrow lead.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So narrow that a victory over the center-right bloc could
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  Speaker 1: come down to mail-in votes that have yet to be counted.
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  Speaker 1: The far-right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats say that this may be
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  Speaker 1: a bump in the road, but not a defeat.
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  Speaker 2: Morning commuters head to work in the Swedish capital, Stockholm,
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  Speaker 2: as the country awaits the outcome of Sunday's general election.
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  Speaker 2: The left-wing bloc is marginally ahead, but in a quirk
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  Speaker 2: of the Swedish electoral system, counting will now be paused
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  Speaker 2: until Wednesday. In the last election four years ago, over 220,000
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  Speaker 2: ballots were included in the late count. with roughly the
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  Speaker 2: same number estimated this time around. If the left-wing Social
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Democrats are able to maintain their lead as the largest party,
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  Speaker 2: they face a complicated task of negotiating with other groups
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  Speaker 2: to form a coalition government. Still, there was optimism at
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  Speaker 2: party headquarters on Sunday evening.
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  Speaker 3: It appears that the result will be very close. That
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  Speaker 3: means that, Regardless of the final result, there is reason
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  Speaker 3: to seek a new spirit of cooperation in Swedish politics.
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  Speaker 3: But now we are leading. If this holds, Sweden will
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  Speaker 3: have a new government.
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  Speaker 2: Current Prime Minister and leader of the centre-right moderate party,
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  Speaker 2: Ulf Christensen, struck a more cautious tone with his political
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  Speaker 2: allies around three seats behind the opposition bloc.
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  Speaker 4: Well.
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  Speaker 5: To me, the result isn't that surprising. I was quite
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  Speaker 5: confident that it was far more narrow compared to what
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  Speaker 5: different polls suggested, so I'm not that surprised. Now it's
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  Speaker 5: extremely narrow, perhaps so narrow that we cannot simply say
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  Speaker 5: yet who has won and who has lost.
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  Speaker 2: In Sweden, there is a sense of surprise at just
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  Speaker 2: how close the results are.
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  Speaker 4: It was entertainment to sit down and watch how it
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  Speaker 4: developed and turned from right to left all the night.
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  Speaker 4: I am quite surprised because both sides of the coin
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  Speaker 4: have been really adamant with their points of view.
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  Speaker 6: For us who want the righties to win, it's a
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  Speaker 6: bit nervous, but still they didn't close yet. So we
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  Speaker 6: still have a couple of days to be decided.
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  Speaker 2: Despite a slight fall in turnout, 80% of people voted
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  Speaker 2: in Sunday's election that was dominated by issues including welfare spending,
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  Speaker 2: gang crime and national security.
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  Speaker 1: Well, our correspondent Terry Schultz, she is just back from Stockholm.
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  Speaker 1: She joins us now from Brussels. Terry, we just heard
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  Speaker 1: there some different views on whether the outcome was expected
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  Speaker 1: or not. You were in Sweden for several days. You've
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  Speaker 1: been talking to voters. What's your take?
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  Speaker 7: Talking to voters, yes, Brent, and also reading those polls obsessively.
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  Speaker 7: And some of them predicted it absolutely perfectly. There was
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  Speaker 7: a difference of one seat last night for several hours.
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  Speaker 7: In fact, when all the party leaders gave their speeches at,
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  Speaker 7: you know, 1 o'clock in the morning, there was only
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  Speaker 7: a one-seat difference. And as votes continued to be counted overnight,
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  Speaker 7: that grew to three seats, which is, as we've been
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  Speaker 7: talking about, razor thin. So I think the really big
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  Speaker 7: surprise of the night came in the— disappointment that the
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  Speaker 7: Sweden Democrats are feeling at no longer being the second
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  Speaker 7: largest party in Sweden. They dropped in support to the
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  Speaker 7: third largest party, which, you know, they're saying that that
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  Speaker 7: was not a failure. But of course, they would have
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  Speaker 7: liked to be even stronger because they have been promised
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  Speaker 7: cabinet seats in the next government if the centre-right bloc
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  Speaker 7: does come to power, Brent. And maybe that will be
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  Speaker 7: different now that they've lost support.
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  Speaker 1: And with the way things are looking right now with
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  Speaker 1: the ballot counting, Terry, who has the better chance of
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  Speaker 1: forming a government?
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  Speaker 7: Well, we don't even know who's going to get the
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  Speaker 7: chance to form a government yet because, as was mentioned
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  Speaker 7: there in Craig's piece, there are some 220,000 votes yet
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  Speaker 7: to be counted, and those won't even be known until Wednesday.
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  Speaker 7: So both sides are really hanging on a thread right now.
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  Speaker 7: It's not clear that Magdalena Anderson will get the chance
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  Speaker 7: to form a a new government. And, you know, this
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  Speaker 7: is really a messy process because you would think that
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  Speaker 7: the party that gets the most number of votes, as
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  Speaker 7: the Social Democrats have done for 100 years in Sweden,
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  Speaker 7: would automatically get the chance. That's not the case. If
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  Speaker 7: she can't form a government, it will again fall to
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  Speaker 7: Uffe Christensen.
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  Speaker 1: Some see this election as a chance to halt Sweden's
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  Speaker 1: shift to the right. But is that really what's at stake?
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  Speaker 1: Or has Swedish politics already changed regardless of who ends
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  Speaker 1: up forming the next government.
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  Speaker 7: You know, if you look at the history of Sweden
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  Speaker 7: as a country, it's not even recognizable now in terms
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  Speaker 7: of immigration policy, asylum policy. This is a country that
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  Speaker 7: had its arms wide open for immigrants for much of
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  Speaker 7: its past. And the Sweden Democrats capitalized on the backlash
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  Speaker 7: that Swedish people were feeling.
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  Speaker 4: They sort of.
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  Speaker 7: Felt like they were being taken advantage of, that these
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  Speaker 7: policies were too lax, that that people with criminal records
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  Speaker 7: were being allowed to stay, people that had no right
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  Speaker 7: or no chance to qualify for asylum were getting a
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  Speaker 7: free ride in Sweden. So there were a lot of
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  Speaker 7: people who were willing to accept these far-right policies. And
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  Speaker 7: that is, in fact, what the government of Ulf Kristersen
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  Speaker 7: did in allowing the Sweden Democrats to cooperate with them
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  Speaker 7: on the right. And then he went a step further,
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  Speaker 7: as I mentioned earlier, and said that if we again
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  Speaker 7: do form a government, you Sweden Democrats will now have
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  Speaker 7: cabinet posts. So Sweden, I think, has gone to the right. Yeah,
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  Speaker 7: there's no going back on a lot of these things.
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  Speaker 1: We know all across Europe this election has been closely watched.
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  Speaker 1: We know in France the far right is surging. We
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  Speaker 1: just saw here in Germany the AFD. They just won
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  Speaker 1: the most votes in a state election. You've got Reform
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  Speaker 1: UK in the UK. I mean, the elections, they were
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  Speaker 1: eagerly watched by both those who support the growth of
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  Speaker 1: far-right politics in Europe and, of course, those who fear them.
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  Speaker 1: Does the result, does it have a message for Europe?
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  Speaker 7: Absolutely, it does. And I think depending on which side
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  Speaker 7: someone is on, they will draw those messages. If you
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  Speaker 7: want to be encouraged that the far right does not
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  Speaker 7: automatically march forward, that there is not a limitless, you know,
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  Speaker 7: growth of far right politics, then they will be encouraged
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  Speaker 7: by the Swedish result. Of course, if you fear far-right politics,
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  Speaker 7: you're going to notice how many votes still do go
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  Speaker 7: to the Sweden Democrats and how right-wing the Swedish government
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  Speaker 7: became with their cooperation. I think a lot will depend
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  Speaker 7: on what happens now with the Sweden Democrats. They may
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  Speaker 7: decide that they went too mainstream in cooperating with Ulf
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  Speaker 7: Kristersson's moderate parties, and perhaps they will again go further right.
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  Speaker 7: We have to see what they do and what the
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  Speaker 7: Sweden Democrats themselves draw as lessons from their election— results
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  Speaker 7: which are disappointing for them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, all of this as the ballot counting continues in Sweden.
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  Speaker 1: DW's Terry Schultz with the latest tonight. Terry, as always,
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  Speaker 1: thank you.