Persson has seen his approval rating slide from 35.7 percent in October 2003 to 31.3 today, according to a poll of 2,079 people conducted by polling firm Ruabs last week.

Main opposition leader Fredrik Reinfeld of the conservative Moderate Party has in the same period seen his popularity soar from 23.6 percent to 31.5, slipping ahead of Persson, according to the poll, which was published in Swedish daily Aftonbladet.

If elections were held today, the right-leaning opposition parties would together win a majority 52.4 of the votes, the poll showed.

"This is great, but the election is still 18 months away, so we have to stay the course," Moderate Party secretary Otto Littorin told Aftonbladet.

Sweden's next parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2006.

Persson's recent dwindling support in opinion polls has mainly been attributed to his government's controversial handling of the December tsunami disaster.

The government has been accused of reacting too slowly to the tsunami catastrophe in Asia on December 26, which has cost more than 270,000 lives.

Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds for instance went to the theater the evening of December 26 as news was coming in of thousands of missing Swedes, and it took days before emergency help was sent to the affected regions.

As many as 20,000 Swedes were vacationing in the region, mainly in Khao Lak in Thailand, at the time.

Five hundred and forty-four Swedes were killed or remain missing and presumed dead after the tidal waves struck, making Sweden, with its nine million inhabitants, one of the countries outside of Asia with the highest per capita death toll.

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