As Sweden wakes up bleary eyed from a roller-coaster election night, it's not clear that the exhausting exercise has brought the country much closer to a new government.
As things stand, a government with the four Tidö parties – the Moderates, Sweden Democrats, Christian Democrats and Liberals – is off the cards (two seats short of a majority), but so is the mittenregering ("middle government") favoured by the Centre Party (six seats short).
The united opposition – the Social Democrats, Green Party, Centre Party, and Left Party – does have a two-seat majority, but is not in fact united. The Left Party refuses to support a government in which it does not have ministers; the Centre Party refuses to support a government where it (the Left Party) does.
There are other options: if the Centre Party is willing to join an augmented Tidö – perhaps without Sweden Democrat ministers – it would have a thundering 23-seat majority. If the Liberals can be persuaded to join a mittenregering – perhaps if led by a prime minister representing a party other than the Social Democrats – this would have a solid 13-seat majority.
So what does this mean for foreigners in Sweden?
1. No quick fix for citizenship rejections or deportations
Anyone hoping a new Social Democrat-led government that can rush through their promised laws bringing in transitional rules for citizenship and an immediate stop to Brexit deportations and teen deportations is likely to be disappointed.
The last time the left-wing bloc tried to conjure up a government from a similarly lacklustre result – in 2018 – it took until January 21st for a government to take office.
That means Ulf Kristersson's government could remain in power for another four months as a caretaker government.
Migration Minister Johan Forssell said in the final stages of the campaign that he was considering allowing British citizens who missed the deadline for post-Brexit residency to apply again.
But according to the Swedish parliament a caretaker government "manages current issues but does not according to practice take political initiatives".
It is not impossible that a law could be proposed to parliament and passed, but the government is unlikely to take the initiative.
2. In the long term, an increased chance of reforms softening migration policy
If the four opposition parties do somehow manage to overcome their differences, the underwhelming performance of the Social Democrats will strengthen the hands of the other three parties, all of whom are more pro-migration than their bigger coalition partner.
On the current count, the Social Democrats have lost 2.3 percentage points in the party's worst election result in more than a hundred years. The Left Party, Green Party, and Centre Party, on the other hand, are up 1.5 points, 1 point, and 0.3 points respectively.
The Social Democrats are the only left-wing party that has pledged to keep strict migration rules in place.
It has promised, however, to pass a law temporarily stopping all teen deportations and to launch a fast-track government inquiry into making a close attachment to Sweden grounds for residency, which would stop many teen deportations and Brexit deportations, and to introduce transitional rules for the citizenship reforms.
But the other parties are all in favour of much more far-reaching reforms. The Left Party and Green Party both favour more generous asylum rules.
The Centre Party, meanwhile, is in favour both of returning to the old, liberal work permit regime Sweden had until 2023, of bringing in fast-track citizenship for high-earning foreigners, and for a freeze to deportations that extends beyond teen deportation cases to include Brexit and work permit cases.
All the opposition parties also want to reform the stricter family reunion law passed this summer, which they claim will lead to "infant deportations".
3. If Ulf Kristersson manages to stay on as PM he will be backed by a less radical government
While Tidö 2 looks off the cards, the right-wing parties still have a shot at building a government. If they succeed, though, it can only happen if they win the backing of the Centre Party which would almost certainly limit further tightening migration policy.
In the January Agreement in 2019, the Centre Party forced the Social Democrats to abolish the top marginal rate of tax – a tax cut for the richest people in society. It would no doubt force the Tidö parties into similarly painful concessions in the (still probably unlikely) event of it backing Kristersson as PM.
It could, for instance, make bringing in transitional rules for citizenship, a freeze on all unreasonable deportations, or the scrapping of work permit salary thresholds part of the price for its support.
4. A centrist mittenregering might be good for highly skilled foreign workers
A mittenregering which swaps out the Left Party for the Christian Democrats wouldn't have a majority without the Liberal Party changing sides (which it has said it will not do). But were such a government to take power, it is likely to be both pro-migration and pro-labour migration.
One of the things the Liberal Party has in common with the Centre Party and Green Party is that it is in favour of an open migration policy for highly skilled workers. The party delayed the implementation of the salary threshold for work permits and also succeeded in reducing it to 90 percent of the median wage from the full median wage.
The party's labour minister, Johan Britz, previously called for the law hiking work permit salary thresholds, which came into force this year, to be scrapped and has also proposed taking responsibility for work permits away from the Migration Agency and giving it to a new talent attraction agency.
It's also difficult to see the more conservative Christian Democrats blocking many of the migration reforms the opposition parties promised in the election.
So what should foreigners do?
For now, there is only one sensible (or indeed available) course of action: wait.
If you are a foreigner in Sweden waiting for a citizenship decision, worrying about a possible deportation, waiting to see what happens to your work permit or trying to work out which government you are going to have to deal with, you're going to need three things: patience, steely nerves and a basic understanding of Swedish bloc politics.
The good news is that you don't actually need to understand everything. That's what we're here for.