STOCKHOLM, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- A small electoral district in southern Sweden reported erroneous results in Sunday's national election and since the miscalculation was discovered, the Sweden Democrat Party has gained a parliamentary seat and the center-left bloc's lead on the center-right has slightly increased.
The error was discovered on Monday evening, according to a statement from the Swedish Election Authority, and it adds additional drama to a nail-biter race that saw the political blocs running neck-and-neck. At the end of play on Election Night on Sunday, the center-left block had gained 144 seats in parliament and the center-right had 143. Now the tally is 144-142.
The shift came after the district in southern Sweden "reported the wrong result", as the Swedish Election Authority's press secretary Lars Aden Lisinski put it.
Although just 1,339 people cast a ballot in the national election in the district where the clerical error was made, the recount meant that the result "tipped over to the Sweden Democrats' advantage", Lisinski told Swedish Radio. The nationalist party ended up gaining one more parliamentary seat and are now up from 62 to 63. The Center Party, however, lost a mandate, going down from 31 to 30.
By extension, the four-party center-right bloc, which is known as the Alliance and which includes the Center Party, also dropped from 143 to 142 seats. The center-left (the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Left Party) still has 144 seats in total, but the final count will not be in until Friday, when all the overseas ballots and early votes have also been reported.
This type of error is unusual in Sweden and Lisinski, speaking to newspaper Aftonbladet, put it down to "the human factor". The southern district declared late at night on Sunday and the poll station workers were probably very tired, Lisinski said.
Meanwhile, the political situation still looks uncertain since neither of the political blocs managed to gain a majority in Sunday's vote and are now scrambling to put together viable government formations ahead of the opening of parliament on Sept. 25.
The Social Democrat Party leadership met on Monday to discuss the election results and how to move forward and have said they would like to see a collaboration between the political blocs.
However, the Alliance, whose leaders also met on Monday, has rejected the offer so far. The Moderate Party and the Christian Democrats have also rejected an offer from the Sweden Democrats to form a coalition government and all parliamentary parties have vowed not to collaborate with the Sweden Democrats, who gained 17.6 percent of the vote, according to the provisional count and thereby cemented their position as Sweden's third largest party and as potential kingmakers.
The Moderates' party secretary Gunnar Strommer told Swedish Television on Monday evening that an Alliance government is the only viable alternative. "Everything else is pure rhetoric," he said.
If the Alliance wishes to form a government, the logical thing would be to do so with the help of the Social Democrats, said Swedish Television's political commentator Love Benigh. "But that would go against the Social Democrats' soul. It would mean that Stefan Lofven would not be prime minister despite his Social Democrat Party being the biggest party in parliament. The Green Party is too small and the Left Party is too far from the Alliance, politically speaking," Benigh said.
