2010

Highlights

• Election of 19 September: The centre-right Alliance won 173 seats (49.3%) and formed a minority government — the first time in nearly a century a Swedish centre-right government had been re-elected. The Social Democrats received just 30.7%, their worst post-war result.
• Sweden Democrats breakthrough: The nationalist Sweden Democrats crossed the 4% parliamentary threshold for the first time, winning 20 seats with 5.7% of the vote. They became the sixth-largest party and the only faction all others refused to cooperate with.
• Economic rebound: Swedish GDP grew by more than 4% in 2010, one of the strongest recoveries in Europe, vindicating the government's fiscal discipline through the 2008–09 recession and making Sweden a widely cited model of crisis management.