Swedish Left Party gains support in immigrant-background suburbs
Thursday 17th September 2026 on 19:00 in
Estonia
Sweden’s Left Party sharply increased its support in suburbs with large immigrant-background populations in the latest parliamentary elections, ERR reported, citing Helsingin Sanomat. In Rinkeby, western Stockholm, the party received 54.5 percent of the vote, compared with about 8 percent nationwide.
The party doubled its support in Rosengård in Malmö and Ronna in Södertälje, which police identify as problem areas. In Råslätt in Jönköping, its support tripled compared with 2022.
Derek Stanford Hutcheson, a researcher at Malmö University, attributed part of the increase to higher election participation among immigrants. Early voting in Rinkeby rose by about 150 percent.
“The Left Party successfully encouraged voters to cast their ballots. They went door to door and spoke with people,” Hutcheson said.
Municipal authorities in the suburbs also worked extensively to make voting easier. Hutcheson said Sweden’s party landscape had changed since the 2022 elections. Many residents in the same areas had then supported Nyans, a small party focused on immigrants and Muslims, which did not play the same role this time.
Nyans received just 0.44 percent of the vote nationwide in 2022, but in Rosengård’s electoral district in Malmö, one in three voters supported the party.
Hutcheson said anti-immigration rhetoric from the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats may have increased voter participation in these areas.
During a Swedish television election debate, Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson was asked whether Muslims voting was a problem. He replied that the problem was not Swedish citizens voting, but that many people in Sweden have values different from those of Swedes. He then began discussing Islamism.
Josefina Sipinen, a lecturer at the University of Tampere, studies voting patterns among people with immigrant backgrounds in Finnish parliamentary elections. She said left-wing parties may benefit from emphasising equality and inclusion and from putting forward more candidates with immigrant backgrounds.