No polling institute had seen it coming. The wave of red and green at the polls in the Nordic countries on Sunday, June 9, is all the more remarkable in that it was accompanied by a decline of the far right, bucking the trend in Europe and the latest elections in Sweden and Finland, which saw the right return to power with the support of the nationalists. In Denmark, the Social Democrats govern in a coalition with two center-right parties.

In Helsinki, the Left Alliance was the first to spring a surprise on Sunday evening. It came second, behind Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's National Coalition Party (24.8%). Up 10.4 points on 2019, the radical left-wing environmental party won 17.3% of the vote, its best performance since its creation in 1990. The Greens lost some support but retained 11.3% of the vote, while the far-right True Finns party, which is part of the government coalition, came sixth with 7.6%.

An hour later, there was a new twist in Copenhagen: The Socialist People's Party took 17.4% of the vote – again, its best result since it was founded in 1959. It came out on top, ahead of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's Social Democrats (15.6%). In combination with the scores of the Unity List (7%) and The Alternative (2.7%), the radical left gained 27.1% of the vote. The sovereigntists of the Danish People's Party dropped to 6.4% and the new nationalist formation, the Denmark Democrats, obtained just 7.4% of the vote.

That left Sweden. With suspense worthy of a Eurovision final, the SVT channel unveiled the rankings: Unsurprisingly, the Social Democrats won the poll, with 24.7% of the vote (their best result in a European election since 1999). The conservative Moderate Party, predicted to be neck-and-neck with its far-right ally, the Sweden Democrats (SD), came second (17.5%). But behind them, it was the Greens who took third place, with 13.9% of the vote (compared with 5.1% at the September 2022 general election). The SD fell to 13.2%, while the Left Party made the biggest gain of the election, receiving 11.1% of the vote (+ 4.3 points), gaining one seat.

In the European landscape, this breakthrough by the radical left and greens is surprising. There are several explanations. The main one is that, on election day, climate – far ahead of immigration – was the issue that galvanized voters in all three countries. This comes at a time when governments – in Sweden, in particular – are in the process of reneging on the commitments made by their predecessors, denouncing punitive ecology and pursuing policies contrary to the objectives set by the 2015 Paris Agreement. This strategy has been widely criticized by the radical left and the Greens, who made the climate the focus of their campaigns.

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