Bizarre: While the election results are coming in (and the right-of-center has now won), the most remarkable fact of the evening to me is that the “övriga partier” — outsider parties, which are expected to garner fewer than the 4% cut-off for representation in parliament — have practically doubled their share, to around 5.7% from 3.1% in 2002. This is big news, and yet there is not a peep from commentators about this. Furthermore, 8% of first-time voters cast a vote for an outsider party — most of it likely to the anti-copyright pirate party or the xenophobic Sverigedemokraterna — and this isn’t being commented on either.

Most frustrating is that while the election results are displayed live both online and on TV as they come in, there is no information anywhere about the breakdown of the vote for the outsider parties. It’s not possible to see, for example, what percentage of the vote is going to the SD. This is a big institutional shortcoming of the electoral reporting tonight, both by the media and by the electoral commission.