Sweden’s far right is taking a step closer to power – POLITICO
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STOCKHOLM – After a decade in the parliamentary wilderness, the right-wing extremist Sweden Democrats finally have a way in from the cold.
The Sweden Democrats’ leader Jimmie Åkesson recently convinced three other opposition leaders that they will need his support to take power from Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, Social Democrat, in an election next year.
Åkesson is now trying to negotiate the best price he can for that support, in the form of political concessions from his future new allies, in order to secure real influence for his party for the first time since it entered the Riksdag in 2010.
“We identify what we can agree on and what we can not agree on, and then look at how important the things we can not agree on are,” Åkesson told POLITICO in an interview in the Riksdag at the end of last week.
There is a lot at stake for Åkesson, who has spent over two decades working to get the Sweden Democrats (SD) here.
When he joined the party in 1995, it was a messy mix of often unpleasant elements, including several neo-Nazi figures.
Since he became leader in 2005, Åkesson has excluded a stream of members for racist statements, and at the same time built up a growing support among voters with a series of sharply anti-immigrant political proposals. But many critics say the party has simply put a tastier face on the same discriminatory policy.
The coming weeks and months seem to be a time of crisis for his project.
If Åkesson pushes his new potential partners – the center-right party Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals – too hard to adapt to his political demands, the emerging cooperation with them may collapse and leave SD frozen again.
But if he does not push hard enough, especially on immigration, which he has promised to reduce to almost zero, his own voters may lose faith in his ability to deliver what they want and abandon the party.
There are also risks for SD’s future allies. Having now signaled that they are willing to cooperate with SD, a party they have long despised, it will be difficult to relax if the talks go badly.
– This is definitely a formative moment in Swedish politics, says Tommy Möller, political scientist at Stockholm University. “The landscape is changing fast.”
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For Sweden as a country, the mere prospect that a right-wing extremist populist party such as SD will gain influence over government policy is already a radical departure.
The country has long raised internationally as a “humanitarian superpower” where until recently a large number of refugees and asylum seekers were welcomed.
When SD was gaining momentum to enter the Riksdag in 2010, former Moderate leader Fredrik Reinfeldt, Sweden’s prime minister from 2006 to 2014, called them an “xenophobic force” and refused to discuss politics with them at all.
But Europe’s migration crisis in 2015, and a resulting peak in the number of asylum seekers entering Sweden, increased support for SD and changed the equation for the Moderates, as well as their long-term partner the Christian Democrats and the Liberals.
Ulf Kristersson, who became Moderate Leader in 2017, initially rejected a connection to SD, but since he lost an election against Löfven 2018, he has slowly changed direction, and in recent months it has become increasingly clear that he is now ready to apply for SD. support to avoid a further defeat in 2022.
In a debate in the Riksdag on Thursday, Löfven was quick to attack Kristersson for his new openness to work with SD and accused him of “linking weapons with a party that does not stand up to the idea that all people are equal.”
Kristersson said that Löfven’s criticism was only an attempt to distract voters from his own government’s failure to meet Sweden’s challenges during his six years in power.
– Our goal is to address those challenges and we will work together with other parties on those issues where we have the same view, says Kristersson.
Current opinion poll shows that Löfven and his allies have a small lead over a bloc consisting of the Moderates, SD, Christian Democrats and Liberals, but it is still early days. The election will be held next September.
The story of SD’s rise and established parties’ struggle to react is one that resonates far beyond Sweden’s borders.
Across Europe, similar right-wing extremist populist parties have gained strength over the past decade, from Finland to France and from Germany to Greece.
Where Sweden has stood out has been that its mainstream parties have unanimously banned SD until now, something that has not happened to right-wing extremist parties elsewhere.
The shift that is now taking place in Sweden brings the country more in line with neighboring Denmark, where the far-right Danish People’s Party has worked closely with mainstream center-right parties since the early 2000s, both in governments and in opposition.
If SD were to take on ministerial roles after 2022, it would bring Sweden more in line with Finland or Estonia, where right-wing extremist parties have recently joined government coalitions.
Åkesson has previously was sent the idea that he would one day become Sweden’s Minister of Justice, which would give him direct power over border policy. But at the moment he said that he is just happy that more and more parties are showing that they are ready to recognize SD and its “not insignificant” role in the Swedish parliament.
“It took longer than we had hoped, but we are a party with great patience,” he said.