Swedish populist leader Jimmie Åkesson, the leader of the Sweden Democrats (SD), is now tied with Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch-Thor as the party leader with the most confidence of Swedish voters.
The survey, conducted by polling firm Novus, is the best result ever for the SD leader showing him tied with Ms Busch-Thor at 31 per cent, and three points ahead of second-place winner and leader of the Left Party Jonas Sjöstedt, broadcaster SVT reports.
Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, the leader of the Social Democrats, has seen a steep decline in confidence among voters according to the survey, dropping six percentages points to 23 percent, putting him in 4th place.
Löfven commented on the results blaming the sharp increase in bombings, the high number of shootings and gang-related violence in 2019 saying, “It is not so strange with the situation we have had in the autumn with far too many shootings and too many blasts. There is a worry and there is anger.”
“Then it is not so strange that it is the party sitting in the government that this anger is directed at,” he added.
The new poll comes just over a month after the Sweden Democrats topped another poll taken by Demoskop in which they garnered the support from nearly one in four Swedish voters.
“I’ve long argued that we would become the biggest party sooner or later. Throughout the years we have consistently talked about gang crime, escalating insecurity, migration policy that has not worked and integration policy that has made the situation worse,” Åkesson said.
2019 has seen major gains for the Sweden Democrats, particularly in the European Parliament elections in May in which they nearly doubled their previous election result, seeing the most gains of any Swedish party.
The situation for the Social Democrats, however, has continued to decline, and while the party won the European Elections, it saw its worst EU Parliament vote in history.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com