By Johan Ahlander and Greta Rosen Fondahn
STOCKHOLM, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Sweden's national election results showed a narrow lead early on Monday for the centre-left opposition over the right-wing government, which could halt the Nordic nation's drift away from its liberal heritage.
The left-leaning bloc, headed by the Social Democrats' leader Magdalena Andersson, was expected to win 176 seats in the 349-seat parliament, the Riksdag, based on votes from 6,195 of Sweden's 6,312 election districts, the election authority
said.
The right-wing governing bloc of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was seen winning 173 seats, with ballot-counting continuing, and with a final results expected to come on Wednesday at the earliest.
The election, while unlikely to change the course of Sweden's pro-Western and pro-Ukraine stance, could decide whether Kristersson's push toward a hard-right clampdown on migration continues or even accelerates.
Given the closeness of the race, the winner may not be known for several days, after all overseas ballots have been counted.
"It's a very tight race, it's going to be a very long night but I think the Social Democrats have done quite a good election," Adonay Endrias Kidane, a doctor and supporter of the Social Democrats, said at the party's post-election gathering in central Stockholm.
In a pre-election pledge, Kristersson broke a longstanding taboo and said he would bring into government the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party with roots in the neo-Nazi fringe, as he aims to create a majority-right coalition.
Many voters on the right say a win would amount to an endorsement of policies that have helped to curb gang violence and cut immigration dramatically.
But some in the Nordic nation of 10.6 million have expressed wariness, saying Kristersson's invitation to the far right was a step too far. Kristersson's critics also say his immigration policies, with incentives and penalties that pressure migrants either to conform more closely to Swedish cultural norms or leave the country, are undermining civil liberties.
Kristersson has trailed in opinion polls throughout his four years in office but had been catching up in the final weeks of campaigning, while Andersson and her Social Democrats lost ground.
CULTURAL NORMS
Hours after voting had ended, Kristersson said he held on to hope that he could still cobble together a majority among the eight political groupings that secured seats in the Riksdag, saying his party's economic policies were more popular than the opposition's.
"Even if tonight's results hold, I will explore whether it's possible to find a viable government constellation ... capable of securing support for the fiscal policy Swedish voters have voted for," he said.
Andersson's bloc is riven with differences over issues from migration, where she wants a more restrictive line than do some of her partners, to a tax on billionaires and construction of new nuclear reactors.
Her budgets may also struggle to find support given that the Left Party, Sweden's former Communist party, and the Centre Party, which favours free-market policies, do not see eye-to-eye on many economic issues.
Electoral success for the Sweden Democrats would be welcomed by Europe's ascendant far-right parties, which were bolstered by the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany's win in a German state election last week.
The far right hopes for gains in upcoming elections across Europe, with the National Rally's campaign for the French presidency next year potentially its biggest prize.
While voting on Saturday in Rinkeby, near Stockholm, the Sweden Democrats' longstanding leader Jimmie Akesson said the suburb, home to one of the country's biggest Swedish-Somali populations, "doesn't look like Sweden".
Sweden was long one of Europe's most welcoming countries for immigrants until Kristersson came to power four years ago. His government abolished permanent residency for refugees, tightened welfare rules and stepped up expulsions of those without a right to stay.
The Sweden Democrats acknowledge that their party was founded in part by neo-Nazis and white supremacists in the 1980s, but say they have eliminated such extremists from their ranks and have apologised for their past.
They have said that, if in government, they will try to ban women from wearing face coverings in public and defund all projects related to the integration of newcomers.
In the latest election results, however, the grouping is set for a reduction in both parliamentary seats and vote percentage for the first time in Akesson's more than two decades as party leader.
"You cannot imagine how nervous I am right now. It feels like my life's work is hanging in the balance," said Ludvig Aspling, a member of parliament and immigration spokesperson for the Sweden Democrats. "It is going to be super tight. We still have a chance," he said.
(Reporting by Niklas Pollard, Simon Johnson, Johan Ahlander and Tom Little; additional reporting by Ilze Filks, Ardee Napolitano, Janis Laizans for Reuters TV, Greta Rosen Fondahn, Marie Mannes, Terje Solsvik and Anna Ringstrom; Writing by Niklas Pollard and Justyna Pawlak; Editing by Peter Graff, Philippa Fletcher, Edmund Klamann and Lincoln Feast.)
