Since World War II, it has only happened twice. The Greens in connection with the 1991 election, and New Democracy in the following election in 1994, when it returned to Parliament.
Now many are wondering whether the Liberals will clear the parliamentary threshold in September. In polls, the party is hovering around 2.0 percent.
Jonas Hinnfors, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Gothenburg, explains that on election day, all parliamentary seats are set to zero. Only parties that pass the 4 percent threshold are allowed to take part in the 349 seats.
“A bit brutal”
If the Liberals get 3.99 percent, all their votes are deleted. They are then wasted. Then the party gets 0 parliamentary seats, as opposed to 14 seats at 4.0 percent.
"It's a bit brutal. That little hundredth is very important," says Hinnfors.
The 349 seats are instead distributed among the other parties that pass the threshold. They are distributed proportionally, meaning that a party that receives 20 percent will receive one-fifth of the seats, which corresponds to 70 seats in the Riksdag. The distribution is done according to something called the adjusted odd-number method.
A party is also hit hard financially by losing its parliamentary seat.
The party loses the so-called party support and cannot afford to have the same number of employees and probably not as expensive premises. However, there is another percentage limit to take into account here. A party that receives between 2.5 and 4 percent is allowed to keep some of its party support, but it is then reduced until the next election.
It will be a kind of financial meltdown, says Jonas Hinnfors.
The support is based on the last two parliamentary elections. For the Liberals, a party support of SEK 11.6 million was decided in 2024, and for the Social Democrats, the sum was SEK 43 million.
Extremely unusual
The Riksdag Chancellery will disappear, as will the possibility of using the Riksdag's investigative service.
If the party remains in municipalities and regions after the election, it will receive local party support. However, this support shall not be transferred to the central organization.
Jonas Hinnfors says that it would be a historic event in Swedish politics if the Liberals left the Riksdag. The party has been in the Riksdag since the "cradle of democracy" and, as mentioned, parties have only left twice before since the 1940s.
"It's extremely unusual. The support vote phenomenon has helped parties quite a few times," he says.
