Swedes head to polls in close general elections

STOCKHOLM -- Polling stations opened in Sweden on Sunday morning in a tight election of competing red and blue alliances.

The energy crisis, immigration and social security are the three major issues Sweden's 7.77 million statutory voters are most concerned about in this election. Preliminary election results will be announced late Sunday night.

The last opinion polls before the general election released by Swedish Television on Friday showed that support for the red-alliance -- the Social Democratic Party, the Left Party, the Green Party, and the Centre Party -- was 49.7 percent, while support for the opposing blue-alliance -- the Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats, the Liberal Party and the Sweden Democrats -- stood at 49.4 percent.

The far-right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats had seen polling support of 21.2 percent and are expected to become Sweden's second-largest party.

Analysts believe that the political alliances in this election have fundamentally changed from the 2018 parliamentary election, as the Moderate Party is now willing to cooperate with the far-right Sweden Democrats, which helped the blue alliance stand with the red alliance at narrow margins of public support.

The Swedish parliament has 349 seats. Elections are held every four years.