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Young leader picked by Christian Democrats

Ebba Busch Thor, 28, has been nominated as the new leader of Sweden's centre-right Christian Democrat party, the smallest political group in the Swedish parliament.

Published: 13 March 2015 14:48 CET
Young leader picked by Christian Democrats
Ebba Busch Thor who is set to lead the Christian Democrats. Photo: TT
The politician, who is currently a councillor in the student city Uppsala, north of Stockholm, is set to take over from Göran Hägglund, who was Minister for Health and Social Affairs in the previous coalition government, led by Fredrik Reinfeldt.
 
He resigned in January after stating that "eleven years as party leader takes its toll".
 
At a press conference to announce her nomination, Busch Thor told Swedish media: "I am extremely happy and grateful for the confidence that Christian Democrat members and the nomination committee have given me".
 

Göran Hägglund announced his resignation in January. Photo: TT
 
Bush Thor added that she planned to promote the party's traditional conservative values and to fight to increase rights for families in Sweden.
 
Busch Thor still needs to be formally elected by the Christan Democrats at a conference in Stockholm on April 25th, but is currently expected to go unchallenged.
 
If selected, she will become the youngest current political leader in the Riksdag. Annie Lööf, who is head of the Centre Party and Green Party co-leader Gustav Fridolin, both now 31, were nominated by their respective parties at the same age as Busch Thor.
 
A graduate in Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University, she also grew up in the nearby town of Gunsta and has been active in the Christian Democrats since 2006.
 
Nominating committee chairwoman Chatrine Pålsson Ahlgren told the news agency TT that it had not been a difficult choice after the other finalist in the race, Jakob Forssmed, dropped out. 
 
"Ebba is an extremely knowledgeable and competent Christian Democrat. A good captain of the Christian Democrats' ship," she said.
 
But the 28-year-old takes over a struggling party. The Christian Democrats only just reached the four percent threshold needed to secure seats in the Swedish parliament in the last general election in September 2014, having previously held top ministerial posts as part of the Alliance – the bloc of four centre-right parties that made up Fredrik Reinfeldt's coalition.
 
“Traditionally, it’s a very religious party, but they have been trying to build wider support for a while now, like the CDU in Germany,” political scientist Jörgen Hermansson at Uppsala University told The Local last month.
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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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