By Niklas Pollard and Simon Johnson STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's centre-left Social Democrat leader Stefan Lofven emerged as victor in Sunday's general election after a voter backlash against tax cuts and trimmed welfare by a centre-right government, but he fell short of a parliamentary majority. The Nordic region's biggest economy and one of the few star performers in Europe now faces a weak minority government with a possible political impasse as the anti-immigrant far right emerged as the third biggest party to hold the balance of power. Lofven's Social Democrats and two other opposition parties, the Greens and Left, garnered 43.7 percent of the vote, against 39.3 percent for Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's coalition. Now Sweden has answered that we need a change." A projection by the election authority showed that the three centre left parties - who have not as yet created a formal bloc - won 159 parliamentary seats, short of the 175 need for a majority.
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September 14th, 2014
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