The populist Sweden Democrats (SD) have seen a surge in support in Stockholm, as another poll shows a rapid decline in national support for the current Social Democrat prime minister.
The Ipsos poll showed that the SD and the centre-right Moderates had gained ground in the Swedish capital while the Christian Democrats, Feminist Initiative, and the Greens have seen a decline in support.
Since the 2018 municipal elections, the populists have gained 2.1 percentage points, the largest of any party in the city, while the Greens and Feminist Initiative have seen a drop of 1.6 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively, Nyheter Idag reports.
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Nicklas Källebring, an opinion analyst at Ipsos, said that while FI and the Greens are still far more popular in Stockholm than they are on a nationwide basis, the polling reveals that issues such as restricting immigration have had an effect on their numbers.
The very pro-immigration Greens even made threats to collapse their coalition with the Social Democrats earlier in the year when the Moderate Party proposed to put an annual cap on the number of asylum seekers entering the country.
Another poll, released by Demoskop for the newspaper Aftonbladet, has shown that Social Democrat leader and current Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has seen a rapid decline in public confidence in the last month. Less than one-third of Swedes have a high or very high amount of confidence in his leadership.
The poll puts Lofven behind four other party leaders, including SD leader Jimmie Åkesson, Moderates leader Ulf Kristersson, and Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch Thor. The most popular leader, according to the poll, is Left Party leader Jonas Sjöstedt who will be retiring as party leader at the end of the month.
According to Aftonbladet, the results of the poll can be explained by Swedes growing tired of the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus crisis and a lack of enthusiasm from Löfven himself.
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