The parties:
Current government:
S - Socialdemokraterna (The Social Democrats). Currently leading the government alongside the Green Party. Social democratic party turned neoliberal. Doesn't privatize social services themselves, but refuses to undo the privatizations made by the right wing. After the immigration crisis they changed their immigration policy to be a lot more restrictive. Has been on a downturn the last decades and are now looking to make their worst performance since modern democracy was implemented, dipping below 30% for the first time in 100 years.
MP - Miljöpartiet (The Green Party) Standard european centre-left green party. They were in a government coalition with the Social Democrats this last term and have seen their numbers drop a lot since. Might not even make it to the riksdag if things go bad for them.
Right-wing coalition (Alliansen - The Alliance)
M - Moderaterna (The Moderates) Right wing party, was leading the government 2006-2014 with their coalition. Biggest party in said coalition. Standard right wing party, leading force in the privatizations that have ravaged Sweden recently. Their 2006-2014 incarnation was liberal on immigration but has taken a much harder stance on this issue recently.
C - Centerpartiet (The Centre Party) Centre-left party that used to be a rural party. Claims to be green but is only slightly less not-green than other parties in the right-wing coalition.
L - Liberalerna (The Liberals) Free market liberals. Really nothing important, like the moderates but slightly more centrist.
KD - Kristdemokratern (The Christian Democrats) Standard right-wing christian democratic party. Seemed like they wouldn't make it into the riksdag this election but have recently had a big upturn. Has also moved rigthwards recently, almost more so than the moderates.
The rest:
SD - Sverigedemokratern (The Sweden Democrats) Far-right anti-immigration party. Have made huge advancements the last decade, and might now become the biggest party if things turn out really bad. Standard european far-right anti-immigration policies. Pretends to favour working class but is for making it easier to fire people, reducing taxes on the rich and privatization.
V - Vänsterpartiet (The Left Party) Self proclaimed socialists but in practice radical socdems. Still further left than Corbyn/Labour though. They claim they want to abolish private property and leave the EU, but are not actually campaigning for these things. Propped up the current Social Democrat government and are hoping to be included in the next one, but the socdems dont want them. has made a big upturn recently and might reach 10% This is the party I voted for.
FI - Feministiskt Initiativ (Feminist Initiative) Irrelevant feminist party. Was close to making the riksdag 2014 but are no longer looking to do so.
What's going to happen:
At 20.00 the voting stops and the poll conducted at the voting booths will be released. This is historically very accurate and will give a very good indication as to what the actual results will look like. After this actual counting starts and gets released throughout the night, usually getting finished a few hours past midnight.
What are the potential outcomes:
Ever since the creation of "the Alliance" in 2004 Swedish electoral politics has been dominated by the two blocks of the Alliance and Red-Greens consisting of S+MP with support from V. Both the blocks are vying for PM and all of the parties in the Alliance claim to want nothing but a government consisting of the Alliance, with no other cooperation. The socdems have been flirting with the Liberals and the Centrists but they have been relucant. SD has been systematically excluded but depending on the results today this might not be possible anymore. I think we're going to see either an Alliance government with support from SD (which would upset a lot of alliance voters since they have consistently claimed they will not cooperate with SD) or a S+C+L goverment, which would be very interesting since it would mean the end of block politics in Sweden.
