The latest poll, run by Sweden’s Television (svt.se), shows that the Liberal Party’s new leadership has not been enough to lift the party above the minimum parliamentary threshold. The poll showed that when asked what party they would vote for if elections were held today, people basically answered like they voted the last time. For the Liberals, this means the support of 3.7% of respondents, up only 0.1% from polls before Nyamko Sabuni took on the Liberal Party leadership. The minimum level of voter support to rate a seat in parliament is 4.0%.
Naturally, this is a huge disappointment for the Liberals. As SVT noted, both Ulf Kristersson and Per Bolund, for the Moderate and Green parties respectively, caused a bump in their party’s popularity when they were voted in as party leaders (). Why this hasn’t happened with Sabuni has various analysts buzzing. SVT News reporter Mats Knutsson wonders if it isn’t because, frankly, she hasn’t been half so outspoken after her election as she was before her election (b). Of course, she needed to shore up her base and unite the party after having won a pretty tight race against party colleague Eric Ullenhag, and this explains why she has made no drastic, or even interesting, move on the domestic politics front. But Sabuni hasn’t made much of a peep about anything at all, which doesn’t exactly inspire anyone to say they’d vote Liberal.
The only party that showed an increase in support was the Sweden Democrats, gaining 1.7% to reach a total support of 18.5%. This increase, along with all the other parties’ results, are within the poll’s margin of error, so while they might be happy about it, there actually isn’t much to write home about for them, or for any party. So far, it’s the same old same old.