The right-wing SD group, which is radically opposed to immigration, has become the second largest party in the country.
More than a fifth of Swedish voters voted for the far-right SD party (Sverigedemokraternaor Swedish Democrats), in Sunday’s election in the Scandinavian country.
The SD is currently the second largest political force in the country and will hold 73 seats in Parliament. With this, he will play an important role in the right-wing coalition that will rule Sweden.
The right-wing coalition consists of SD, Moderate Party, Christian Democrats and Liberal Democrats. The person most likely to become the next prime minister is Ulf Kristersson of the Moderate Party.
With its prominence in the coalition, the SD has reached a level unimaginable before: a nationalist party for the first time? Did he come from a neo-Nazi group? He came very close to power in Stockholm.
The election campaign’s focus on issues involving immigration and violent crime brought the SD ideology to the heart of the highest echelons of Swedish politics.
The party was founded in 1988 by Nazi sympathizers, and much of its existence has remained on the fringes of politics in the country. The SD fought for two decades to get enough votes to elect even a parliamentarian.
But since it entered parliament in 2010, the party has only grown, sparking political upheaval in a country normally known for its stable and predictable politics.
Counting 99% of the polls, the SD received 20.6% of the vote in Sunday’s election – making it the second largest party in Parliament and the largest in the right-wing coalition, which currently holds a majority in Parliament.
“It’s dramatic given the SD’s entry into Parliament in 2010,” says political scientist Johan Martinsson of the University of Gothenburg. “They became the second largest party after three elections. Sweden used to have a very stable and predictable political party system.”
Martinsson describes the party as anti-immigrant, anti-multicultural and nationalist.
Image: Getty Images
On Sunday, SD replaced the Moderate Party as the most popular right-wing party in the country.
Martinsson says the results are a turning point in Swedish history.
From pariah to power
The success of the SD has sparked heated debate about how much the party has changed – or hasn’t – ideologically changed as it has transformed from a political pariah to a key player in power.
The group’s current leader, Jimmie Akesson, who took over in 2005, said it has implemented a “zero tolerance policy” against racism and extremism for 10 years. In 2015, he suspended the party’s entire youth wing for its ties to the far-right.
The party also went through a sweeping image change, replacing the burning flame logo with a more innocent-looking flower and chanting “Sweden stay Swedish”.
However, these changes were not enough to quell accusations that the party posed a threat to minority groups in Sweden.
One of the most frequently criticized is Willie Silberstein, chair of the Swedish Anti-Semitism Committee, who has recently become the target of anti-Semitism after using the position of publicly criticizing the SD in a television interview.
“The coalition has a problem with the parties formed by the Nazis. It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact,” he told the BBC. “When a party is this full of people who should be excluded because they are Nazis, that says something about that party.”
He points to a widely publicized study published last month by the Swedish research group Acta Publica, which claims to have identified 289 politicians from major parties who expressed views that could be considered racist or even Nazi. The vast majority of them – 214 – were SD members.
Image: Getty Images
“It scares me that they have such a big influence on Swedish politics,” Silberstein says. “I’m thinking about immigrants in general, not just the Jewish minority.”
Tweets and other social media posts by party members – in some cases by elected officials – continue to cause group image problems.
At the height of the election campaign, 26-year-old MP Tobias Andersson, the official spokesperson of the SD, tweeted a photo of the Stockholm metro in party colors.
“Welcome to the return express. Here’s the one-way ticket. Next stop is in Kabul,” he wrote.
According to the AP news agency, some Swedish commentators criticized the post, but the SD leader refused to apologize, citing the post as an irony of people’s resentment of party propaganda.
party denial
The party denies accusations of racism.
“All this was before I was born,” says Emil Eneblad, vice-president of the SD youth movement. “I don’t think the fact that there were suspects in the party 30 years ago affected our election position,” the 21-year-old activist told the BBC.
He says the party has nearly doubled support among young people in Sunday’s election – something it owes to the group’s focus on three issues: security, employment and immigration.
“Young people are looking for change,” he says.
Political scientist Johan Martinsson said that immigration-related issues have been on the agenda for a long time, adding that Sweden has received one of the highest number of asylum seekers per capita in the world in recent years.
The rise in immigration and the perceived rise in violent crime may explain the increased support for SD, a party that has not only campaigned on both issues for years but has also come to the fore for its controversial claim that the two issues are linked.
source: Noticias
