Swedish centre-right holds edge before vote

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's center-right government is clinging to a slim lead over the Social Democrat-led opposition before a parliamentary election on September 19, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's four-party Alliance government was supported by 47 percent of voters surveyed. The "red-green" opposition bloc of center-left parties had 46.4 percent, the Novus/TV4 poll showed.

Novus/TV4 said of the Alliance: "Those are the best figures for the coalition since the 2006 election."

But a junior member of Reinfeldt's alliance, the Christian Democrats, fell below the threshold for seats in parliament and the pollster said the bloc's overall lead was so small it was not statistically certain with a 3.1 percent margin of error.

Support for the red-green opposition sank to the weakest level since the last election, the pollster said, with backing by younger voters dwindling over the past two months.

The center-left had led in opinion polls through most of Reinfeldt's four years in power, thanks largely to increased support for the Greens, but recent surveys show a tighter race.

The telephone survey of 2,000 voters, carried out May 25-June 7, was the third poll in recent weeks to show the government in the lead and saw Reinfeldt's Moderates eclipse the Social Democrats as the Nordic country's biggest party.

Social Democrat leader Mona Sahlin, slated to become prime minister if the "red-green" coalition wins the election, said fierce government attacks on the opposition's first joint budget bill rolled out in early May partly explained the poll results.

"I think there are only three things you can interpret from this," Sahlin told Reuters on the sidelines of a party event.

"The first is that the Moderates are very mobilized and that this is happening mainly at the expense of the other right-wing parties. The second is that we Social Democrats are not very mobilized and the third that this is a very even race."

The four-party center-right alliance ended a decade of Social Democrat rule in 2006 on promises of cutting income taxes while preserving Sweden's cherished welfare state.

Reinfeldt told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday that income taxes could be cut further if his center-right coalition was re-elected, but stressed that securing public finances and the welfare state would come first.

Sweden's public finances are in much better shape than many European countries. But a high jobless rate and a sluggish economic recovery has left Reinfeldt facing a tough re-election fight.

The Social Democratic Party, the Green Party and the Left Party have promised more spending on the welfare state funded by higher taxes.

The Novus/TV4 poll also showed the far-right and anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats with 4.8 percent of voters' support, more than the 4 percent required for it to gain representation in parliament.