Sweden’s far-right party sees an increase in opinion polls | The world | News
According to an opinion poll by SVT/Novus, the Sweden Democrats (SD) are now the main challengers to the Social Democrats – even though it is considered the most “controversial” party. In Sweden, the Social Democrats currently lead a minority government led by Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. Gabriel Hedengre, editor and podcast host for Europe chooses – the European politics website and opinion poll aggregator – and a Swede himself, explained to Express.co.uk what the feelings are about SD in the country and why their popularity seems to be growing. The trend that appears to emerge from the surveys is that support for the SD is now greater than the Moderates (liberal-conservative), explained Hedengre.
Mr Hedengre said: “While SD has become a more acceptable party to many voters in recent years, particularly on the right, it remains by far the most controversial and embittered political party in the country.
“Year 2018 [the year of the last Swedish election]55 percent of voters said it was the party they liked the least of the nine most popular parties running that year.
“Even politicians who will negotiate and cooperate with SD in a few months will admit publicly that the party is unfit for government and call its representatives despicable.
– It is difficult to determine what the polls say about Swedish people’s feelings in general, apart from the fact that they are polarized, with the support that the two political alliances are fairly evenly divided.
“That said, the fact that many centrist voters who actually despise the SD plan to vote for a bloc that includes them points to a very intense dislike of the current government among many groups.”
Sweden is a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation where the parties are divided into “blocs”: red is center-left and blue is center-right.
SD has been on the rise since its inception in 1988. It has since changed its name when it entered the Riksdag, but despite this it still faces criticism.
The former leader, Mattias Karlsson, admitted that some of the founders came from the openly racist group “Håll Sverige svenskt”, but that this was disbanded in 1986, two years before SD was formed.
Karlsson has also said that SD “is not a continuation of that organization”. But it still faces criticism from anti-fascists.
Its current leader, Jimmie Åkesson, led the reform and expelled members and has since struggled to ensure he has the support of any other parties.
It is believed that the Swedish public’s perception that SD is the toughest against both crime and immigration has led to increased popularity.
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The SD has just announced its plans to reduce asylum migration to “almost zero”, in a bid to have the lowest levels of immigration of any country in Europe.
Mr Hedengre continued: “The party has been able to regain its support during the campaign [since the pandemic and Russia invading Ukraine] mainly because of the important role that debates around crime and refugee integration play.
“A recent survey from Novus shows that the voters think SD has the best political agenda when it comes to crime and overtakes the Moderates for the first time.
“It has managed to increase its national vote share in every single election since then [1988] which is a remarkable political achievement.
“Since 2010, when it entered the Riksdag, the party has focused on rebranding and reforming itself so that other right-wing parties feel comfortable cooperating with them.
“After 2018, when the center-right alliance failed to oust the center-left government, this strategy has paid off in that SD is now part of a loose right-wing bloc where voters also flow between parties more freely.”
While Hedengre said there wasn’t necessarily a specific policy driving the recent surge in opinion polls, it appears that Swedish voters are prioritizing immigration and crime.
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He continued: “Years of aggressive campaigning have meant the party has successfully established itself as the toughest on immigration and crime…
“According to a new Novus survey, voters rank SD first when it comes to both immigration and law and order.”
But Hedengre explained that this surge in popularity had nothing to do with the party’s previous “Euroscepticism” as SD abandoned its “Swexit” stance in 2019 in an attempt to align itself with mainstream right-wing parties.
He added: “[The mainstream right-wing parties] consistently listed [Swexit] politics as a central argument against giving SD any form of political influence.
“Recent polls also show that less than one in eight Swedes are in favor of leaving the EU, so a highly Eurosceptic campaign would risk alienating many potential voters.”
Sweden’s parliamentary elections will take place on September 11.