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Close race in Sweden

STOCKHOLM: Sweden's Social Democrat Prime Minister and his centre-right challenger stepped up last-minute campaigning on Saturday, on the eve of what are likely to be the country's tightest elections in decades. Prime Minister Goran Persson was heading to the downtown pedestrian heart of the capital, Stockholm, while centre-right alliance leader Fredrik Reinfeldt chose to speak in several smaller towns to mobilise voters. At stake in the Sunday vote for the 349-seat Riksdag Assembly is the country's famed welfare state model that has made Sweden a haven of free education, universal health care, little poverty and job benefits unparalleled by many other wealthy nations. Strong economic growth is also a boost for the Social Democrats, architects of the cherished cradle-to-grave welfare model. They have governed for most of the past seven decades, including the past 12 years. — AP

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