Sweden, Wednesday's count gives Andersson's bloc 175 seats

The newspaper had written about it on September 14, 2026, when the election night count was still provisional and the late advance votes and postal votes were still missing (Sweden has voted, but the real count starts on Wednesday). That count, announced for Wednesday, has arrived: according to SVT, the centre-left bloc led by Magdalena Andersson has obtained 175 seats out of 349, one more than Ulf Kristersson’s centre-right coalition, stuck at 174.

The margin separating the two coalitions remains minimal. On Wednesday afternoon, with less than 1% of the districts still to be counted, the votes dividing the two blocs were just 26,169. Such a narrow difference explains the caution with which the Social Democratic leader herself commented on the result: “We have to wait for the final election result,” Andersson said, recalling that the definitive certification of the Riksdag vote will not arrive before the weekend following the elections.

The picture that emerged on Wednesday nonetheless marks a reversal compared to the election night projections, when — as reported in the September 14 piece — the data released by Valmyndigheten were explicitly preliminary precisely in view of the recovery of postal and late votes. It is that recovery that produced the overtaking announced by SVT: a one-seat margin, sufficient according to the public broadcaster to mark the shift in majority from Kristersson’s outgoing government to the centre-left opposition.

It remains to be seen whether the one-seat margin will hold up to the final certification. With just over twenty-six thousand votes separating the two coalitions at the intermediate stage of the count, the last vote tallies to be counted could still shift the outcome. Sweden thus arrives at the weekend with a result that has been announced but not yet secured: the number that counts — 175 to 174 — is Wednesday evening’s, not necessarily the one that will be certified in the coming days.