The Moderates are losing voters
The Moderate Party ('Moderaterna') is losing voters, while the ever controversial Sweden Democrats keep on gaining, according to the last voter barometer from Yougov and daily Metro.
Ever since the last election, in 2010, the Sweden Democrats is the party where straying Moderates go. With only 6 months to go before the next election, it looks like the Moderates are experiencing a crisis when it comes to voters. During the month of March, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s party is losing 1.3% of its voters, ending up with a mere 23.7% of the total votes. This is the lowest support for the party since Yougov began their monthly measuring for Metro in the spring of 2011. The alliance as a whole receives 37.4% of the votes, while the red-green parties are close to a majority with 49.9% of the cotes.

”We are not happy with the state of opinion,” says the Moderates’ Party Secretary Kent Persson. ”What is needed now is hard work and focus on a clear debate on how to increase the number of jobs and how politics are to be financed, krona by krona.”
The party that’s increasing the most is the Sweden Democrats, the party 11.5% of the voters say they’d vote for if there was an election today.

”The voters are more mobile and more uncertain than ever,” says Kent Persson. ”At the moment we’re losing to a number of different parties. In order to secure the election, we have to win those voters who are not sure yet, mobilize our own, and again try to win voters straight from the Social Democrats.
The Party Secretary for the Sweden Democrats, Björn Söder, says that his party has noticed an influx of Moderate voters for quite some time now. ”Many unhappy Moderates find us, especially because of the new Moderates’ development towards a more liberal party, and because they’ve toned down a number of their previous symbolic issues, like the defense- and criminal policies.” As the red-greens march ahead, the Sweden Democrats focus on stealing voters from the Social Democrats. ”We want to protect our role as balancing the power, and therefore we’ve got our mind set on their core issues,” Söder says.