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ELECTION

Moderates continue to tumble in new poll

Sweden's centre-left opposition parties have the support of the majority of Swedish voters, a much-watched opinion poll revealed on Tuesday, while support for Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's Moderates continues to sink.

Published: 4 June 2013 10:25 CEST
Moderates continue to tumble in new poll

Together, the Social Democrats, Left Party, and the Greens have the support of 50.5 percent of the Swedish electorate, according to Statistics Sweden’s (SCB) latest Political Party Preference Survey.

The four parties of the centre-right Alliance coalition government – the Centre Party, Liberal Party (Folkpartiet), Moderates, and the Christian Democrats – command a combined 40.7 percent of voter support.

Support for the Moderate Party now stands at 26.9 percent, marking the biggest drop in support among the parties since the previous survey in November 2012, when the party had support of 28.1 percent of the electorate.

Since the 2010 elections, the Moderates have seen their support wane by 4.2 percentage points, while support for the Social Democrats has climbed 4.9 percentage points to 35.6 percent during the same period.

The Green Party’s 8.5 percent of voter support makes it Sweden’s third largest political party, according to latest Political Party Preference Survey, followed by the Sweden Democrats (7.7 percent), the Left Party (6.4 percent) and the Liberals (6.0 percent).

The Christian Democrats, meanwhile, failed to reverse their downward trend in the opinion polls, dropping an additional 0.2 percentage points to 3.6 percent, below the four-percent threshold required for parliamentary representation.

Support for the Centre Party also dropped by 0.2 percentage points, but the party nevertheless registered support of 4.2 percent of voters, enough to maintain its place in parliament.

Carried out twice a year, the Statistics Sweden Political Party Preference Survey is based on a much larger survey sample, roughly 9,000 people, than the more frequent polls carried out by public opinion research firms.

The Party Preference Survey in May 2013 was conducted by telephone interviews with a national random sample of 9,059 people who are of voting age.

Participants in the survey are asked which party they would vote for if an election were to be held in the coming days.

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POLITICS

‘Very little debate’ on consequences of Sweden’s crime and migration clampdown

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast. 

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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