Sweden Elections End in Hung Parliament, Rise of Far-Right
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Swedish elections on Sunday night ended in a hung parliament after the rise of a far-Right group narrowly prevented the conservative-liberal coalition government from winning an outright majority in Sweden’s parliament.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and his wife Filippa. Reinfeldt appears to be heading for an historic second term. Photo: The Telegraph
The result, which gave Frederik Reinfeldt's Moderate-led alliance the largest share of seats in the Riksdag, was the worst result since 1914 for the Social Democrats, effectively ending the party's 80 year domination of Swedish politics.

Official preliminary results showed Mr Reinfeldt’s centre-Right coalition winning 173 seats in the 349-seat parliament and the Social Democrat led Left-Green coalition with 156 seats.

However, the big news of the night for a country which has long prided itself as being one of the most tolerant in Europe was that the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats (SD) looked set to win 20 seats, their first entry to the national parliament.

Despite winning the largest share of the vote, Mr Reinfeldt’s coalition could face weeks of horse-trading after both his conservative-liberal alliance and the opposition left-Green bloc ruled out working with the far-Right.

“If this result stands we will have an uncertain situation,” said a government spokesman.

Before polling opened, Mr Reinfeldt had pleaded for a clear majority amid fears that in the event of a hung vote far-Right MPs from the SD party could play a “kingmaker” role in forming a new government.

“Don’t expose Sweden to this experiment. Make sure they don’t get any power,” he said of the far-Right. >>> Bruno Waterfield and Matthew Day | Sunday, September 19, 2010

Sweden's PM Re-elected But Fails to Win Majority
THE GUARDIAN: Sweden's ruling centre-right coalition led by prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt beat the Social Democrat opposition in Sunday's election but failed to win an outright majority. The far right Sweden Democrats have won seats in parliament for the first time

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Read article: Sweden's ruling coalition heads for minority government: Prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt becomes first non-socialist to win re-election since 1930s >>> Julian Borger | Monday, September 20, 2010