Tonight, the first semi final of Melodifestivalen 2010, the Swedish national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 will be held. Eight acts have competed and two of them were chosen to proceed to the grand final while another two will get a second chance in Andra chansen.

The following two acts will compete in the national final on 13th March:

• Salem Al Fakir – Keep on walking
  (Salem Al Fakir)
• Ola Svensson – Unstoppable
  (Dimitri Stassos, Alexander Kronlund, Hanif Sabzevari, Ola Svensson)

The following two acts will enter the second chance round on 6th March:

• Pain of Salvation – Road salt
  (Daniel Gildenlöw)
• Jessica Andersson – I did it for love
  (Lars Diedricson/Kristian Wejshag)

The results

The qualifiers were chosen in two rounds of voting. The winner of the first round was Salem Al Fakir and he directly qualified for the final of Melodifestivalen 2010. The top thre had already been removed before the voting in the first round was closed. They were Jenny Silver, Anders Ekborg and Frispråkarn. The remaining four acts competed in the second round of the voting and Ola Svensson directly qualified for the final being the winner with Pain of Salvation and Jessica Andersson making it to the second chance round.

This was the first of four semi finals. Another eight acts will compete in the second semi final next Saturday.

esctoday.com poll results

The esctoday.com poll voters widely agreed with the voters in the semi final. Poll winner Ola Svensson (25.8%) made it to the final and so did number four Salem Al Fakir. Jessica Andersson had come second in the poll 24.5% while Pain of Salvation had vome fifth with 11.6%.

In 2009, Sweden was represented by Malena Ernman with the song La voix. She finished fourth in the first semi final but dropped to 21st place in the final getting 33 points.