Government takes voter poll lead

The Moderates are losing support while the ruling Social Democrats and their coalition partners are once again leading over the opposition alliance in the opinion polls, according to the latest research by Skop.

Published: 3 April 2006 09:05 CEST

Support for the Social Democrats has increased by 2.7% since last month’s poll and is at its highest since October 2004.

The ruling coalition, including the Green Party and the Left Party, now enjoys 50.4% voter support while the conservative opposition is down to 46.4%. That reverses the February figures, which saw the opposition pulling ahead on 50.1% compared to 46.7% for the government and its supporting parties.

Both the Moderates and the Liberals dropped support this time around – with the Moderates falling by 3.2% in the ratings.

The poll was based on 1,100 interviews conducted between March 12th and March 28th – two days before the inquiry by the parliamentary constitution committee into the Swedish government’s response to the tsunami disaster strongly criticised six ministers, including prime minister Göran Persson.

The latest ratings (with the change from last month in brackets):

Social Democrats: 39.0% (+2.7%)

Green Party: 5.7% (+0.7%)

Left Party: 5.7% (+0.3%)

Moderates: 23.5% (-3.2%)

Liberals: 9.6% (-1.4%)

Centre Party: 6.9% (+0.5%)

Christian Democrats: 6.4% (+0.4%)

Other parties: 2.4% (+0.1%)