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Sweden Democrats could enter parliament: poll

A small but significant surge in support for the nationalist political party Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD) means they could enter parliament after general elections later this year, if current trends continue.

The latest Skop poll published in Swedish media at the weekend shows that 4.4 percent of the electorate favours the Sweden Democrats, up 1.2 percentage points on December results. The party has thus moved beyond the legal threshold of 4 percent for entering parliament, following a trend previously recorded by several polling agencies. National elections are in September.

According to the party platform, it believes in restrictive immigration. Only those with paid jobs should be permitted to remain in Sweden. In addition, refugees should be returned to their home countries when safe to do so.

“The mass immigration of the past decades has come to pose a serious threat to our national identity by creating huge areas populated by people who will never see themselves as Swedish or as part of our culture or our history,” the official Sweden Democrat platform says.

Should the party enter parliament in September, it could conceivably play an important swing role in determining the next government. Polls have recently showed that the two main political blocs, the Red-Green centre-left coalition, and the ruling center-right Alliance, are neck and neck. The Red-Greens have consistently shown a polling majority, but the Skop poll says there is now only a 1.4 point difference favouring the Red-Greens, consisting of the Social Democrat, Green, and Left parties.

Founded in 1988, the Sweden Democrats have 286 local seats in 145 Swedish municipalities. In the city of Landskrona in southern Sweden the party received 22.3 percent of electoral votes in general elections in 2006, making it the third largest party on the city council. It garnered 2.9 percent of national votes, not sufficient for entering parliament, but enough to be entitled to automatic financial support from the state as a qualified political party under Swedish law.

The party, led by Jimmie Åkesson has its origins in an earlier political movement called Keep Sweden Swedish (Bevara Sverige Svenskt).

The Skop poll provided unwelcome news for Jan Björklund’s Liberal Party, which dropped 2.4 points to 6.9 percent, the only statistically significant result result in the poll of 1,000 voters.

Respondents were asked to express a preference when asked which party they would vote for if an election were held today. The poll was carried out in the period from January 24th to February 4th.

Skop poll results, percent (change from December in parentheses)

Moderate Party, 28.8 (-0.1)

Liberal Party, 6.9 (-2.4)

Centre Party, 5.9 (+1.2)

Christian Democrats, 5.0 (+1.6)

Total: 46.6

Social Democrats, 32.1 (+1.0)

Green Party, 10.5 (-0.4)

Left Party, 5.4 (-1.0)

Total: 48.0

Sweden Democrats 4.4 (+1.2)

POLITICS

Sweden Democrat leader calls for ‘reevaluation’ of Swedish EU membership

The leader of the Sweden Democrats reawakened the spectre of Swexit – Sweden leaving the European Union – on Tuesday penning a debate article which called for a reevaluation of membership.

Sweden Democrat leader calls for 'reevaluation' of Swedish EU membership

“With ever increasing instances of far-reaching gesture politics, EU membership is starting to become dangerous like a straitjacket which we have no choice but to simply accept and adapt to,” Åkesson wrote in an opinion piece in the Aftonbladet newspaper

“This means that German, Polish or French politicians can in practice decide over which car you are going to be allowed to buy, how expensive your petrol should be, or which tree you should be allowed to cut down on your own land.” 

As a result, he said there are “good reasons to properly reevaluate our membership of the union”.  

In the run-up to the UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016, the Sweden Democrats called frequently for Sweden to follow the British example and hold a renegotiation of its relationship with the EU followed by an in-out referendum. 

But in 2019, as the UK struggled to negotiate a satisfactory departure agreement, Åkesson changed his position saying that he now hoped to change the European Union from within

In his article on Tuesday, Åkesson said that power was continually being ceded from Sweden to Brussels. 

“The more that happens, the more the will of the people as reflected in parliamentary results is going to be less and less relevant,” her said. “Our Swedish elections are going to soon become irrelevant to Sweden’s development, and of course, we can’t let that happen.”

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