Political elections and parties

This chapter covers how elections work in Sweden and the role of political parties. Elections to the Riksdag, regional councils and municipal councils are held every four years, while elections to the European Parliament are held every five years. You must have turned 18 to vote. The Riksdag election requires Swedish citizenship, while in municipal and regional elections you can vote without citizenship if you have been registered as a resident in Sweden for a total of three years; citizens of the EU or other Nordic countries only need to be registered residents to vote in those elections, and EU citizens vote for the European Parliament in the country where they are registered. The rules therefore differ between the different elections.

Beyond the regular elections, referendums can be held on specific questions, nationally, regionally or locally. They are advisory, meaning politicians are not obliged to follow the result. One example given is the 2003 referendum on replacing the Swedish krona with the euro, where voters said no. At the vote itself, the eligible voter receives a voting card by post stating the polling place, but advance voting is also possible. The vote is secret: you vote behind a screen so no one can see which party you choose.

Political parties bring together people with similar ideas about how society should be governed, and anyone who wants to can become a member or start a new party. During the election campaign, parties try to persuade voters through debates, meetings and campaigns. Sweden uses proportional elections, meaning a party gets roughly the same share of seats, for example in the Riksdag, as the share of votes it received. Since this often requires cooperation between parties to reach a majority, there is a four-percent threshold: a party must get at least 4% of the vote to enter the Riksdag, a rule meant to stop too many small parties from making it harder to form stable majorities. The chapter also lists, in alphabetical order, the parties that sat in the Riksdag up to the 2026 election: Centerpartiet, Kristdemokraterna, Liberalerna, Miljöpartiet, Moderaterna, Socialdemokraterna, Sverigedemokraterna and Vänsterpartiet. Since the chapter is explicit about concrete rules and figures, such as the age limit, the four-percent threshold and the conditions for voting without citizenship, the test is likely to test exactly this kind of detail.