September 15, 2003	Monday	Rajab 17, 1424

STOCKHOLM, Sept 14: Swedes voted a resounding “No” to the euro on Sunday, defying expectations that sympathy votes might lift the “Yes” side after the murder of pro-euro Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, official results showed.

The Election Authority said opponents of Sweden ditching the crown and becoming the 13th member of the euro zone had 56 percent of the vote to 42 percent for the “Yes” side, with 98 percent of ballots counted.

About two percent of voters expressed no preference. The preliminary figures meant an unassailable lead for the “No” side.

The results come as a blow to Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson, a fierce advocate of the single European currency, who on Sunday said Swedes had clearly rejected membership of the euro, conceding defeat for the “Yes” campaign in his country’s referendum on the European single currency.

“I can now state that the result is clear, very clear,” he said on public television after an exit poll and a partial count of the vote pointed to a clear victory for opponents of Swedish euro membership.

An earlier exit poll by SVT public TV indicated those wanting to keep the Swedish crown rather than adopt euro had won 51.8 per cent.

“It looks more likely to be a ‘No’, that’s for sure,” said Gunnar Lund, minister in charge of the euro campaign, speaking after exit poll announced.

Some last-minute opinion polls had indicated that backers of the euro had eroded a big “No” lead on sympathy for Lindh, a fervent euro advocate who died on Thursday after being stabbed by an unidentified attacker in a Stockholm department store.

Euro skeptics feared that abandoning the crown would mean price rises, less funding for the welfare state and a loss of control over Sweden’s relatively robust economy.

Sweden will stay in the EU but outside the euro with Britain and with Denmark, which also voted “No” to the euro in a 2000 referendum. By contrast, Estonians voted strongly on Sunday in favour of joining the EU in 2004 with nine other states.

Persson, who said before the vote that he would stay on even with a “No” vote, as well as mainstream political parties and big business had all urged a “Yes”, saying it would help the economy and give Swedes more influence.

Financial markets had widely discounted a “No” but the Swedish crown fell on the result nevertheless, though in very thin trade as markets were still closed.

Swedes turned out in large numbers to decide on the introduction of the euro in a referendum overshadowed by the death of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh.

About 7 million were eligible to vote on whether Sweden will become the 13th of 15 EU countries to introduce the single currency.

The result of the referendum was earlier considered wide open following the murder of the 46-year-old Lindh earlier this week. She was a proponent of the “Yes” campaign.

“The killing will influence people to vote ‘Yes’. But I still think that the result will be ‘No’. There are so many good things and so many bad things about the euro that I really don’t know,” said Lena Winqvist, a 52-year-old accountant, who voted blank herself.

Meanwhile, the manhunt for Lindh’s attacker continued with all available personnel deployed.

Police spokeswoman Stina Wessling said Sunday that the suspect has not yet been identified. Swedish tabloids, and later police authorities, released Saturday a series of photographs showing him, but his face had been blacked out.

The pictures were taken from security cameras in Stockholm’s NK department store where the minister and mother of two boys was stabbed Wednesday while shopping with a female friend. She died 13 hours later in Karolinska hospital.—Agencies