Swedish Election Results

Sweden went to the polls this past weekend and the results are mostly in, with overseas ballots left to be counted. But the results are clear, a stark rise for the nationalist Sweden Democrats, though not as high as some had feared late last week.

Not surprisingly we had the standard parliamentary seat chart, seen below by the BBC. The nice twist this time is the annotations stating the seat change. (More on that later.)

It does a good job of showing the parties and how they are laid out, though I am sometimes more partial to a straight-up bar chart like below at Reuters.

However, both do not do a great job in showing what would traditionally be a kingmaker result for Sweden Democrats. When stacked at each end, neither the centre-left bloc, led by the Social Democrats, nor the centre-right, led by the Moderates, are in control of a majority of seats in the Riksdag. Imagine that neutral colour straddling a 50% benchmark line or sitting in the middle of the seats. It makes it far clearer just how pivotal the Sweden Democrats would usually be. Because, usually, Sweden Democrats or parties like it—in the sense of it won a large number of seats—that help the main coalition cross that 50% threshold would have an enormous sway in the next governing coalition. But here, the Sweden Democrats are an anti-immigrant, nationalist party that both the centre-left and centre-right have said with whom they will not enter talks.

But graphically, the thing I always find lacking in charts like those above are just how dramatic the rise of the Sweden Democrats has been. And so for that, we have this little piece of mine that complements the two. Because not all members of the coalitions experienced the declines of their major parties, the Social Democrats and the Moderates. In fact, with the exception of the Green Party, all others rose or, in the case of the Liberals, stayed flat. A more thorough defeat would have probably seen the whole of the coalition falling in the number of seats. Unfortunately for Sweden, in this case, the nationalists took the lion share of the seats lost by the top two parties.

Credit for the BBC piece is mine.

Credit for my work is mine.

Author: Brendan Barry

I am a graphic designer who focuses on information design. My day job? Well, they asked me not to say. But to be clear, this blog is my something I do on my own time and does not represent the views of…my employers. I think what I can say is that given my interest in information design—be it in the shape of clear charts, maps, diagrams, or wayfinding systems—I am fortunate that my day job focuses on data visualisation. Outside of work, I try to stay busy with personal design work. Away from the world of design, I have become an amateur genealogist and family historian. You will sometimes see that area of work bleed into my posts. View all posts by Brendan Barry