Sweden’s Far Right Makes Big Gains in Sunday Election

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven invited the opposition to talks aiming at a “cross-bloc cooperation” after his center-left party failed to gain a majority in Sunday’s elections.  

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Since the 1970s, two mainstream parties in Sweden, the center-left Social Democrats, and the center-right Moderates have regularly won more than 60 percent of the vote. This has dropped to 48 percent as the party system in Sweden fragmented with smaller parties gaining support.

The ruling Social Democrats remained the largest party with 40.6 percent of votes while the center-right Alliance garnered 40.3 percent. However, in the Sunday elections, the center-left has recorded its lowest vote share in more than a century.

The polls gave the Social Democrats 144 seats in the 349 seat parliament, the Riksdag, against 142 for the Alliance. This suggests that Sweden is looking towards a hung parliament, and uncertainty.

The nationalist Sweden Democrats emerged as the third-largest political force in a country known for its liberal politics and policies. The party won 17.6 percent and 63 seats which have increased from 49 seats in the last election four years ago.

Lofven told his supporters on Sunday that this situation must be dealt with all responsible parties and that “a party with roots in Nazism would never ever offer anything responsible, but hatred.”

“We have a moral responsibility. We must gather all good forces. We won’t mourn, we will organize ourselves,” he added.

The Sweden Democrats' leader Jimmie Akesson told his supporters, “We have strengthened our role as kingmaker. … We are going to gain real influence over Swedish politics.”

Mattias Karlsson, Sweden Democrats’ parliamentary leader, suggested that the Social Democrats and the center-right moderate party listen to the signal from the Swedish people, and asked them to change policies that the Swedish people want to see, namely an anti-immigration stand.

The rise of the Sweden Democrats is a ripple effect of what is happening in other European nations i.e., a rise of the right and anti-immigration demands. Immigration in Sweden is connected to rising public concern about crime, social order, and threats to the Swedish way of life, arguments used by far-right parties and politicians to gain support among voters.

The Sweden Democrats sent a message to the public that claims national decline and the need to defend Sweden’s welfare model from mass immigration. This enabled Sweden Democrats to build support which primarily came from working class people or people with less formal education whose primary concern is immigration.

The effect of their support and an increase of seats in the elections has already started to have rippling effects as the Social Democrats pledged to reduce welfare for failed asylum seekers, strengthen identity and border checks, apply stringent measures for refugees and their right to chose where to live, and permanently ban failed asylum seekers from ever returning to Sweden if they do not leave the country voluntarily.

This marks Sweden’s mainstream party’s shift towards the right on identity issues to appeal to voters concern about immigration and terrorism and fend off challenges from nationalist/populist parties, just as with various European parties .