A poll published Friday showed Sweden's leftwing opposition nearly neck-and-neck with the ruling centre-right coalition just a month ahead of September 19 elections.

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The Synovate poll, published in the Dagens Nyheter daily, handed Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's four-party government 47.8 percent of voter intentions compared to 46.6 percent for the left-leaning opposition coalition.

"The distance (between the blocs) is now so small that only 68,000 voters would need to switch sides for the balance to be reversed," Dagens Nyheter wrote of the poll.

Friday's survey marked a 2.1-percent boost for the opposition coalition, led by Social Democratic leader Mona Sahlin, and a 1.3-percent drop for the government parties compared to the last Synovate poll published in June.

Reinfeldt's Moderate Party and its coalition partners the Christian Democrats, the formerly agrarian Centre Party and the economically liberal Folk Party together won the last elections in 2006 with 48.2 percent of the vote.

The Social Democrats, Greens and formerly communist Left Party together scored just 46.1 percent of the vote in that election, but had seen their popularity soar far past the government block in the years following the vote.

In a poll from January 2008, for instance, the three leftwing parties garnered 58.5 percent of voter intentions, compared to just 37.9 percent for the ruling coalition.

But in recent months, the government has sailed on Sweden's strong economy to the lead in most polls.

Reinfeldt's Moderate Party took the hardest hit in Friday's survey, seeing its support slip 3.8 points compared to the June poll to 29.3 percent.

The Social Democrats, which have dominated Swedish politics for most of the 20th century, meanwhile held onto their place as the country's largest party with 31.3 percent.

The poll especially highlighted the growing popularity of the Green Party, which made its best polling score since January 1996 with 10.8 percent of voter intention -- more than double the 5.2 percent of the vote it won four years ago.

The far-right Sweden Democrat Party, which has been tipped as a possible king maker in the upcoming election if neither bloc lands a majority, meanwhile saw its support slip a full point compared to the June poll to 3.6 percent.

If the party were to make the same score in next month's vote, it would fall beneath the four-percent barrier for entering parliament.

Synovate conducted its poll of 1,804 voting-aged Swedes between August 9 and 18.