Swedish prosecutors are investigating alleged election interference in Borlänge, where a disputed personal-vote campaign involving Somali-background voters helped propel a little-known Left Party candidate into parliament.
A separate corruption inquiry is examining possible vote-buying, while Sweden’s Election Review Board can assess the validity of the result without waiting for the criminal investigation to conclude.
As the national elections were extremely close, the news of possible election fraud is extra sensitive.
The first investigation concerns allegations that voters were driven to an early-voting station, given ballots already marked for Mohamed Abdukardir Ali and, in some cases, offered cash.
The complaint was initially filed on September 1 but closed for lack of evidence. It was reopened after the September 13 election, with the police National Operations Department taking over from regional officers.
No one has been identified as a suspect in that case, prosecutor Oskar Edvardsson told Reuters.
A second, separate investigation has been opened under the heading “improper benefit in connection with voting”. Edvardsson told SVT that this could involve an attempt to buy or sell a vote. One person is suspected in that inquiry.
He said it could be difficult to establish where an alleged offence took place if contact occurred electronically.
The available reporting does not establish that both investigations concern the same people or alleged network.
Sweden’s open-list electoral system allows voters to choose a party and mark a preferred candidate on its list. If a candidate receives enough personal votes, they can overtake people placed higher on the list.
Ali, a Somali-born Swedish citizen who obtained citizenship in February, stood ninth on the Left Party’s Dalarna list. He received 648 personal votes, overtaking Kajsa Fredholm, the party’s climate spokeswoman, and securing a parliamentary mandate.
Ali, who has been a party member for about a year, said he had not run a personal campaign or distributed his own election literature. He told SVT the allegations were “completely, completely wrong”.
A second Left Party candidate in Borlänge, Ahmed Abas Omar, received 343 personal votes in the municipal election and is reportedly in line to overtake the local group leader.
Both men have taken a “timeout”, but neither has been notified as a suspect.
Swedish media, citing the complaint and surveillance material, have reported that voters, many of Somali background, were transported from poorer districts to the Kupolen shopping-centre polling station and handed Left Party ballots already marked for Ali.
Expressen has reported photographs of ATM withdrawals and of Ali with another candidate who later withdrew cash. The significance of those images, and whether they establish any connection to alleged payments for votes, remains for investigators to determine.
Personal-vote campaigning is legal. Voters may mark their own preference on a ballot, but allegations that ballots were marked by others or that voters were paid to support a candidate raise separate questions about the freedom and integrity of the vote.
DN reported on September 23 that Ali would not relinquish his parliamentary seat.
Forsberg has denied reports that the party offered Ali a staff job on an MP’s salary in exchange for stepping aside. She said the party would need to tighten its background checks.
A timeout does not itself constitute a formal resignation or vacate an elected seat.
The criminal investigation is not the only process that could affect the outcome. Sweden’s Election Review Board can examine whether irregularities affected the result independently of the police inquiry.
The board does not need to wait for the police investigation. A review could lead to corrective measures, including a recount or a rerun of the vote.
A rerun in Dalarna would put 11 parliamentary seats in play. Sweden has never before rerun a parliamentary election, Reuters reported, and any new vote would have to take place within three months.
Joakim Nergelius, a professor of law at Örebro University, told Sveriges Radio he could not recall a comparable case involving networks handing out pre-marked ballots. He said that if Ali’s own involvement could not be established, his parliamentary seat might be unaffected.
Security specialist Jörgen Holmlund told SVT the case could prompt a review of Sweden’s voting arrangements.
Concentrated voting among diaspora communities is not new in Sweden, and voting patterns in immigrant-heavy areas have featured in political debate for years.
It was visible in 2018 and often dismissed as a Sweden Democrat talking point.
But turnout patterns and a candidate’s personal-vote total are not, by themselves, evidence of electoral fraud.
🇸🇪 Statistics Sweden found the two political blocs roughly level among voters of Swedish background.
But 37 percentage points apart among voters of foreign background.
Read more ⬇️#SwedishElection #EuropeanPolitics #Migration https://t.co/4t5h4CWjJt
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) September 14, 2026
