SWEDEN: The omens were not good yesterday morning that Swedes would say yes to the euro. The steps of the Riksdag parliament building were still carpeted with roses, a make-shift shrine to Ms Anna Lindh, the foreign minister brutally stabbed on Wednesday.
But the crowd was smaller, the tears less visible. In the nearby palace courtyard, the royal brass band that had played only mournful songs in the last days could be heard striking up a chirpy version of Abba's Super Trooper. On a sunny Sunday morning in September, life was returning to normal.
"The shock of the killing has gone and people are more wise than politicians or the media give them credit.
"This day is here and people are focused on that, not on the tragedy," said Ms Helena Thornes, a half-Irish woman after voting in the Jungfrugetan polling station.
"Swedes always want to be sure of everything and are scared of the uncertainty they feel the euro would bring. People here are worried that there hasn't been enough time for the euro to function and to know if it is a good thing or not." Levels of support for the euro, trailing badly for most of the campaign, jumped nearly 10 per cent in polls conducted after Ms Lindh's death to within striking distance of the anti-euro campaign.
The 10 point jump in "yes" support in the last week was reflected in last night's preliminary results, and the so-called "Lindh effect" was in evidence at polling stations yesterday.
"I was going to vote 'no' but I changed my mind at the last minute," said one young woman. "There are 'yes' arguments and 'no' arguments but this is an emotional decision. I guess you could say I was swayed emotionally by Anna Lindh's death." It was an opinion shared by many other women, generally seen in polls as more sceptical of the single currency.
"I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people changed their minds. I am one of those people," said Ms Gun Andersson, a pensioner.
"I cried so much after she died and decided to change my mind and vote 'yes', though I don't now why." Many younger voters who had already planned to vote 'yes' were less sure that Ms Lindh's death would swing a 'yes' vote.
"Everyone I know already had their minds made up, including myself, so don't think it will influence things," said Mr Ulf Persson.
Ms Gunilla Josephson, a retired teacher, turned up at lunchtime and overcame her previous doubts. Behind a green canvas screen, she opted to scrap the krona and join euroland. "It's not so much for me, I'm too old now, but for my daughter, so she will have more chances to work and live in Europe," she said.
Voting was brisk from early morning, according to polling stations. The country's 7.1 million voters were asked to answer a simple question yesterday: "Do you believe that Sweden should introduce the euro as its currency?" Voters were presented with three slips of paper to put inside the electoral envelope: a "yes" vote, a "no" vote and a blank vote.
"I know a lot of people who were planning to vote blank just to show they support the democratic cause, even if they haven't made up their minds on the euro," said Ms Pernilla Mellin.
The NK department store in central Stockholm, where Ms Lindh was stabbed, was still a point of pilgrimage yesterday for people either on their way to vote or on their way home.
The two piles of flowers that began to appear here on Thursday morning were waist-high by yesterday afternoon. Beside one pile was an oversized €10 note. A young student wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Göran Persson, at the weekend suggesting that Ms Lindh's face, the face of the "Yes" campaign, should be used on the national side of Sweden's euro coins.
Despite the resolve of voters there was still a sombre mood in many of the city's polling stations. "Election day is usually a big party, and it feels terrible that a murderer could change that," said Mr Lars Leijonborg, leader of the Liberal Party, to journalists outside a polling station in central Stockholm.
After voters rejected the euro last night, Sweden will have to find another way to honour their dead foreign minister.