The pro-Erdoğan Islamist party in Sweden is raising concerns after it received a large number of votes in immigrant districts
Levent Kenez/Stockholm
The center-left bloc that has ruled Sweden since 2014 failed to get a majority in the parliamentary elections on Sunday. The far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) have for the first time become the largest party on the right, although it is not yet clear how a new government will be formed. Meanwhile, a smaller party established in Gothenburg managed to make itself heard on election night. The Islamist Nyans (Nyans) party, which was founded by an immigrant who came to Sweden from Turkey in 2001, received more votes than expected from several immigrant neighborhoods. According to many, this is an indication of failures in integration and could cause a political crisis in the future.
The Nuance Party (Partiet Nyans or PNy), founded and led by Turkish-Swedish politician Mikail Yüksel, who was expelled from the liberal Center Party (Center Party) in 2018 due to his relations with the violent Turkish nationalist group De Grå Vargarna, achieved success in several districts in Sweden’s big cities Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg. This situation, which was not reflected in the latest polls before the election, came as a surprise to many political experts who agree that immigrants in Sweden generally prefer established parties.
Nyans performed much better than many established parties in the Rosengård district in Malmö, Rinkeby in Stockholm and in Gothenburg’s Västra Hisingen and Svarte Mosse. Nyan’s candidate was not elected to the municipal council in Malmö with a small vote margin. Nyans is believed to have received votes primarily from supporters of the Vänsterpartiet (Left Party) and the Social Democrats (Social Democrats). Nyan’s numbers will surely increase with votes from Swedish citizens abroad and early voting papers that have not yet arrived at the polling stations. However, it is unlikely that Yüksel or any other Nyans candidate will be elected to Sweden’s Riksdag.
Yüksel, 40, from the Kulu district of Konya, where 40 percent of the Turks and Kurds who immigrate to Sweden come from, settled in Sweden through marriage in 2001. He began his education in political science at the University of Gothenburg after working at a number of Job. Yüksel entered politics with the Center Party, which he says he felt close to because it was multicultural and the party of the villagers in Sweden.
In an interview he gave to Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu, Yüksel claimed that he was expelled from the party because he refused to make a statement against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkey 2018. Given that Yüksel was at the top of the parliament list along with party leader Annie Lööf His dismissal caused quite a stir in Sweden at the time.
Yüksel denies that Nyans is an Islamist party and claims to believe in a multicultural society. According to Yüksel, Islamophobia, integration and housing problems are the core issues they attach the most importance to. Yüksel also advocates official minority status for Muslims, in the same way as Jews. The Nuance Party has recently performed at support meetings for families whose children have been placed in the care of the Social Services. According to Nyans, Muslims are discriminated against when children are taken from their parents due to abuse. Furthermore, children placed with foster families lose their Muslim identity.
Almost all the candidates on the Nyans list are Muslims. There are very few Swedes on the list, which includes Muslims of Turkish, Somali and Balkan origin. The party, which had not yet been able to complete its nationwide organization, had to nominate the same person in several cities. According to a report in the Swedish media, there were a significant number of criminals and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated people among the Nyans candidates.
For example, Bashir Aman Ali, the founder of the Al-Azhar Foundation who ran for parliament in the city of Stockholm, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison in 2019 for allowing 10 million kroner (about $900,000) to be taken out of the foundation illegally for to start an Islamic bank. Ali claimed during the election campaign that Muslims in Sweden can be “imprisoned without trial or evidence”.
According to a news story published on the website of state-funded Sveriges Radio on September 1, Yüksel was convicted in a Turkish court of a minor assault on a relative in 2009 and ordered to pay damages.
Although Nyans received a high percentage of the vote in some districts in big cities, these numbers do not represent a large number of voters because these constituencies are not densely populated. But on election night, pundits and social media users commented on this unusual situation for Sweden.
Many right-wing voters express concern that an Islamist party has become popular among immigrants. Political experts predict that Nyans is likely to enter parliament in future elections, exceeding the electoral threshold, which is only 4 percent. Right-wing voters also see it as the failure of integration and blame left-wing governments.
A number of social media users think the Nyans case is overblown because some want SD’s rise not to be discussed nationwide, arguing that the racist, extremist and anti-Semitic SD is a bigger problem for Sweden.
Commenters on social media also believe that some voted for Nuance to protest local authorities allowing far-right groups to burn copies of the Koran, particularly in neighborhoods with large Muslim populations.
Some voters are worried about the rise of both SD and Nyans at the same time. For example, the Jewish Youth Association in Sweden tweeted on Monday: “It is clear that we are getting an increasingly polarized society. Our second largest party [SD] had 200 candidates with Nazi connections on their lists and in Malmö the chances look good for Nyans to get into the council. Scary times.”
The fact that Yüksel is a Turkish Islamist brings to mind his relations with Turkey and its ruling party. He defines Nuance as a friend of Turkey. He wants the conditions put forward by Turkey to be met in exchange for Sweden’s NATO membership being approved. He also sees the groups that Turkey considers terrorists to actually be terrorists. However, because of the bitter experience he had with the Center Party, he seems to be cautious and wary of Turkey and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In February, Nordic Monitor reported that Erdoğan had asked his party members living in Europe to organize and create mechanisms that would influence politics in the countries where they live.
Erdoğan also said that if they are united, no state, party or organization in Europe can impose anything on them, adding that they will become a community that cannot be ignored.