General elections were held in Sweden on 11 September 2022 to elect the 349 members of the Riksdag who in turn elected the Prime Minister of Sweden. Under the constitution, regional and municipal elections were also held on the same day. The preliminary results presented on 15 September showed the government parties lost their majority, which were confirmed by the final results published on 17 September. After a month of negotiations following the elections that led to the Tidö Agreement among the right-wing bloc, Moderate Party (M) leader Ulf Kristersson was elected prime minister on 17 October. The Kristersson cabinet is a minority government of the Moderates, Christian Democrats (KD) and Liberals (L) that relies on confidence and supply from the Sweden Democrats (SD).

The campaign period was met with issues regarding Sweden's accession to NATO due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as crime, energy, the economy, and immigration. Parliamentary parties campaigned through July and August, while in late August SD surpassed M in opinion polls. Exit polls showed that S and its confidence-and-supply parties Left Party, Centre Party and Green Party had a narrow lead against the right-leaning bloc (SD, M, KD, L). During the counting of the preliminary results and later on, Sweden's Election Authority said that the right overtook the left (S, V, C, MP) by three seats. Andersson conceded the election three days later, and resigned the day after that.

The election saw massive swings between the two blocs in different regions. The left-leaning bloc won the most votes in large cities and several university towns with unprecedented massive margins. Stockholm city went red by 18 points, Gothenburg by 11 points and the left also flipped two suburban municipalities in Stockholm County. Meanwhile, the right managed to overturn dozens of municipalities that had historically been dominated by S, especially in the central interior Bergslagen region. In this historically industrial area, the county of Dalarna was won by the right-leaning coalition for the first time in history, while the left held on by just 373 votes in Värmland. Likewise, some municipalities that the outright leftist parties (S, V, MP) had won with an overall majority of 50 points in the 1994 Swedish general election, flipped to the right. In middle Sweden, the right won Eskilstuna, Gävle, Norrköping, Södertälje and Västerås. All five had been historical leftist strongholds.

Major gains in minority were also made by the right-leaning bloc in Northern Sweden, leading the vote in eight municipalities compared to none four years prior. In the lower east, the historically leftist swing counties Kalmar, Södermanland, Västmanland and Östergötland all went to the right to seal the parliamentary majority. S won 30% of the popular vote, with a net increase in spite of the election loss. SD became the second-largest party with above 20% of the popular vote, surpassing M at 19%. The blocs were separated by a thin margin of about half a percentage point. The parties aligned with the outgoing government did somewhat better in the regional and municipal elections.

Background

The Swedish Social Democratic Party (S) regained power after the 2014 Swedish general election, with the Green Party (MP) taking part in Stefan Löfven's coalition government. S retained the position as the largest parliamentary party after the 2018 general election, despite losing 13 seats in comparison with the previous election. The election resulted in a hung parliament, as neither the Red-Greens nor the Alliance had enough seats to form a government, and the Sweden Democrats (SD), which had been subject to a cordon sanitaire by all other parties as an anti-immigration or far-right party, won 62 seats.

Ulf Kristersson, leader of the Moderate Party (M), was given the task of forming the government, and opened up to SD after previously ruling out an alliance with them upon assuming the party leadership in 2017 and during the 2018 election campaign. In turn, the Centre Party (C) and Liberals (L) declined to back his candidacy, as Kristersson wanted SD to take part in the government. Löfven was later given the task, although he also failed to form a government. Speaker of the Riksdag, Andreas Norlén, set another vote to be held in January, and Löfven formed a deal between S, MP, C, L, and the Left Party (V). Löfven was re-elected on 18 January 2019 with S and MP voting in favour, while C, L, and V abstained.

Löfven's government

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Sweden became known on 31 January 2020. The government later ordered 100,000 people a week to be tested to curb the spread of the disease; with insufficient healthcare resources and unclear responsibilities, the goal was not met. In contrast to the World Health Organization, the government did not recommend the use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government did not impose national lockdowns but rather limits on the number of people that were allowed to meet at public places. In December 2019, Kristersson held a meeting with SD leader Jimmie Åkesson, and said that he would cooperate with SD in the Riksdag. According to Ann-Cathrine Jungar of Södertörn University, this put Sweden in line with several other European countries in which centre-right and radical-right parties cooperate. In August 2020, the right-wing opposition criticised the Löfven government for a perceived failure to deal with rising crime including gun violence, which Kristersson called a "second pandemic".

During his premiership, Löfven abolished the austerity tax (), a top tax rate of 5% points for incomes above €6,000 a month, as was requested by the then Liberals leader Jan Björklund in turn for allowing his premiership. V opposed this move and later also stated it would initiate a vote of no confidence due to the government's policies the party saw as "unacceptable". In 2021, S proposed to abolish rent controls for new housing; V responded by initiating a vote of no confidence against the government. Löfven's government was dismissed on 21 June 2021; only S and MP voted in favour of his government. After the dismissal, Nyamko Sabuni, the new leader of the Liberals, stated that her party would not cooperate with S any more. Speaker Norlén proposed Löfven to form a government, and on 7 July the government was re-established. A month later, Löfven announced that he would step down as leader of S and as prime minister in autumn of 2021. Following the disappointing results in the 2018 general election that once again relegated the party to the opposition and saw the dismissal of the centre-right Alliance, M broke the cordon sanitaire in Swedish politics and opened up to SD. By autumn 2021, the right-wing opposition (M, SD, KD, L) formed an informal agreement for a future M–KD government headed by Kristersson of the Moderate Party as prime minister with the external support of L and SD.

Andersson's government

The Social Democrats held a party congress on 4 November 2021, to elect a new leader; former Minister for Finance, Magdalena Andersson, succeeded Löfven as the leader of the party. Speaker Norlén proposed Andersson to form a government, and after securing a deal with V, Andersson was elected as prime minister on 24 November. MP pulled out of confidence and supply for her government, which led to Andersson's resignation seven hours after her election as prime minister. MP quit the government due to the passage of the opposition's budget in place of that of the government.

Speaker Norlén nominated Andersson again, and on 29 November she was re-elected with 101 votes in favour and 75 abstentions. Considering that MP did not vote in favour of the government, the Andersson Cabinet would be only composed of members of S. Heading into the 2022 general election, Andersson's leadership moved the Social Democrats to the left after the publication of a May 2021 party report, "Distributional Policies for Equality and Fairness", which criticised the rising inequalities that emerged from political decisions by previous left and right governments.

Following the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Andersson's government applied with Finland to join NATO on 18 May 2022, despite the historical opposition of Social Democrats to NATO. During the vote in the Riksdag, only MP and V voted against joining NATO. In July the government signed the accession protocol to join NATO. Andersson's government received high approval ratings.

Electoral system

The Riksdag is made up of 349 seats, and all are elected through open list and proportional representation on multi-member party lists. Of the 349 seats, 310 are elected within the 29 constituencies. The number of members per district ranges from 2 to 40. The remainderthe 39 other membersare apportioned nationally as levelling seats to ensure a proportional result. They are allocated to particular districts. Were a party to win more constituencies than it is entitled to overall, a redistribution of constituency seats may occur to reduce the number of constituency seats won by that party. Sweden has the distinction of having elections on a fixed date with a parliamentary system in which early elections can be called. In the latter case, the newly elected legislature would serve the remainder of the four-year term begun by the previous legislature. Elections are organised on the second Sunday of September every four years, at the same time as the municipal and regional elections.

Each of the 29 constituencies has a set number of parliamentarians that is divided through constituency results to ensure regional representation. The other members of parliament (MPs) are then elected through a proportional balancing, to ensure that the numbers of elected MPs for the various parties accurately represent the votes of the electorate. The Swedish constitution () 1 Ch. 4 § says that the Riksdag is responsible for taxation and making laws, and 1 Ch. 6 § says that the government is held responsible to the Riksdag. This means that Sweden has parliamentarism in a constitutional monarchyensuring that the government is responsible to the people's representatives. A minimum of 4% of the national vote, or alternatively 12% or more within a constituency, is required for a party to enter the Riksdag. Were the latter to occur, the party only gains representation within that constituency's seat share. In previous Swedish elections, voters could openly pick up several party-specific ballots and then, in the voting booth, use the ballot they chose. Two election observers of the OSCE who were present at the 2018 general election criticised this system, saying that the open selection of party-specific ballots could endanger ballot secrecy. This was changed in the 2022 election. Election officials are responsible for party-specific ballot papers being present in the voting places for parties that have obtained more than one per cent of the votes in the previous parliamentary election. A voter may write in the party name of choice on a blank ballot paper to cast a vote if there is no access to the desired party-specific ballot paper.

Political parties

The table below lists political parties represented in the Riksdag after the 2018 general election.