STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish political parties face weeks of haggling to form a government after voters delivered a hung parliament on Sunday, with the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats saying they hold the balance of power. In Sweden, an influx of 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015 - the most in Europe in relation to the country’s population of 10 million - has polarized voters and fractured the long-standing political consensus. Partial results, with some 80pc of districts counted, showed the ruling centre-left Social Democrats and Greens and their Left Party allies winning 40.6pc of the vote, while the opposition centre-right Alliance were seen at 40.1pc. The Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in the white supremacist fringe, won 17.6% and 63 seats, up from 12.9% and 49 seats in the last election four years ago, the biggest gain by any party in Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag. At the Swedish Democrat’s election eve rally on Saturday, party leader Jimmie Akesson criticised Mr Lofven’s government for “prioritising” the needs of new immigrants the ones of Swedish citizens. Its showing was not as strong as the one-in-five polls had predicted, but good for a third-place finish that had the party’s leader telling supporters, “We won.”

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who brought the Social Democrats to power in 2014, said he intended to remain in the job. Sounding sombre and firm, Mr Lofven told his supporters the election presented “a situation that all responsible parties must deal with,” adding that “a party with roots in Nazism” would “never ever offer anything responsible, but hatred.”

“We have a moral responsibility.
The center-left parties that form the current government obtain 40.6% of the vote, the center-right alliance winning 40.3%. The far-right Sweden Democrats gain 17.6%. A long process to form a coalition government now seems likely.