Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced her resignation on Wednesday after an unprecedented right-wing and far-right bloc narrowly won Sunday’s elections.

Of the 349 seats in Sweden’s parliament, the right-wing opposition was set to win 176, thanks in part to a surge in the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD), counting over 99 percent of districts.

Andersson, leader of the Social Democrats, told a news conference that it was a “slight majority, but a majority nonetheless.”

“So tomorrow I will hand in my resignation as prime minister and the responsibility for the further process will be handed over to the speaker,” Andersson said.

Sunday’s elections were so close that tens of thousands of foreign votes and advance votes had to be counted to validate the results.

Never before has a Swedish government relied on the support of the anti-immigrant and nationalist SD, which emerged as the big victor by more than three percentage points.

With 20.6 percent of the votes counted so far, the party became the second largest party in Sweden behind the Social Democrats, who have dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s.

However, the Prime Minister’s post will in all likelihood go to Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson, as SD leader Jimmie Akesson is unable to unite all four parties at the head of government.

“I am beginning to form a new and strong government now,” Kristersson said in a video posted to Facebook.

Kristersson, a former gymnast, marked a major about-face for his party when he started exploratory talks with the Sweden Democrats in 2019 and then deepened their cooperation.

Later came the Christian Democrats and, to a lesser extent, the Liberals.

At the same time, there remains a thorny question as to whether the far-right would get cabinet posts, which Akesson described late Sunday as their “target”.

In a post on Facebook on Wednesday, Akesson thanked “friends of Sweden” across the country.

“Now the work begins to make Sweden great again,” said the party leader.

The Sweden Democrats emerged from neo-Nazi groups and the Keep Sweden Swedish movement in the early 1990s and entered parliament in 2010 with 5.7 percent of the votes.

Long shunned as a “pariah” on the political scene, the party has seen strong growth in each subsequent election as it struggles to polish its image.

Her uncompromising stance on rising gang shootings and integration set the tone in this year’s election.

The narrow majority also means that the power of a right-wing government would be very fragile, as the four parties are fiercely opposed to each other on a range of issues, particularly the Liberals and the Sweden Democrats.

“This is a difficult parliamentary situation,” Mikael Giljam, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg, told AFP.

“And then there are parties that don’t like each other, the Sweden Democrats and the Liberals,” he added.

In such a situation, a few disgruntled MPs could turn the balance of power.

Behind the SD with 73 seats, 11 more than in the last election in 2018, the Moderates have 68 seats (-2), the Christian Democrats 19 (-3) and the Liberals 16 (-4).

On the left, the Social Democrats climbed to 107 seats (+7) thanks to 30.4 percent of the votes, ahead of the Left and Center (24 seats each) and the Greens (18).

Formally, the process of political change can only begin after the announcement of Prime Minister Andersson’s resignation on Thursday.

Then the speaker of the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament, can give Ulf Kristersson the order to form a majority between the four parties and initiate a negotiation phase.

The earliest the election of the new head of government can take place is September 27, when parliament reopens.