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Centre-right parties split over nationalists racism debate

One of Sweden's opposition leaders has caused a stir after she said that she did not think far right nationalist party Sweden Democrats were racist.

Published: 1 September 2016 17:50 CEST
Centre-right parties split over nationalists racism debate
Christian Democrats leader Ebba Busch Thor. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

In an interview with Christian newspaper Dagen published in the early hours of Thursday, Christian Democrats leader Ebba Busch Thor was asked if she considers the Sweden Democrats to be a racist party.

“No, I don’t if we’re talking about their official policy today, but the party has a history which came from racist origins,” she replied.

Busch Thor’s opinion contrasted the one previously expressed by Moderate leader and fellow Alliance boss Anna Kinberg Batra only four days earlier.

When asked in an interview with public service broadcaster SVT last Sunday whether SD were a racist party, Kinberg Batra replied “they blame all problems on immigration, that’s racist”.

The opposing answers suggested a difference in opinion towards SD within the centre-right Alliance parties, an expert said.

“Anna Kinberg Batra put her foot down quickly and said that SD are a racist party, but Ebba Busch Thor is giving a bit to both groups within her Christian Democrats,” University of Gothenburg political science professor Jonas Hinnfors told news agency TT

“She said that SD is not a racist party, but also underlined the party’s history and that there are people in the party who are racist. That may be a way for her to balance a complicated internal situation,” he added.

A third Alliance leader, Centre Party chief Annie Lööf, has also expressed her opinion on the matter.

“SD is a party with racist roots and with a view of humanity that is far away from mine and the Centre Party’s,” she wrote on Twitter.

When asked later on Thursday about her original comments later, Busch Thor appeared to backtrack.

“I meant that if you look strictly at their programme you can’t say that it is a racist party. But I think it is clear that they are still unable to come to terms with a widespread racism in the party which both characterizes their history as well as characterizes their party as a whole today, and many of their representatives,” she told DN.

It hasn’t been an easy month for Busch Thor. An August 2016 opinion poll conducted by Inizio suggested that only 3.8 percent of Swedes would vote for the Christian Democrats if a general election was held today – one percentage point down compared to the previous edition of the survey from June. 

A Novus poll published on Thursday meanwhile projected that an even lower percentage of voters (3.2) would vote for the party. 

POLITICS

Sweden Democrats promise ‘softer tone’ after troll factory sparks right-wing rift

The Sweden Democrats on Thursday continued to hit back at a TV4 documentary that revealed a troll factory run by the far-right party, but promised to adopt a softer tone in social media when posting about its government allies in the future.

Published: 16 May 2024 13:25 CEST
Sweden Democrats promise 'softer tone' after troll factory sparks right-wing rift

The announcement came after Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson sharply criticised Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson, after the latter referred to the documentary as a “gigantic domestic influence operation” by the “collective left-liberal establishment”.

“It’s a dreadful Americanisation of politics,” Kristersson told the TT news agency, presumably referring to the similarities between former US President Donald Trump and the six-minute video posted by Åkesson in which he launched a verbal attack on Swedish journalists.

The documentary, in which a reporter working for TV4’s Kalla Fakta programme goes undercover within the Sweden Democrats’ communications department, reveals a number of things, including attempts at smear campaigns on politicians from other parties.

It reveals a total of 23 different anonymous accounts spread across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, which are all run by the Sweden Democrats and also spread for example radical anti-immigration views. These accounts have a combined 260,000 followers and published roughly 1,000 posts in the first three months of the year, which were viewed over 27 million times.

In one clip, communications head Joakim Wallerstein tells the group of troll factory workers to “find shit” on the Christian Democrats’ top candidate for the EU parliament, Alice Teodorescu Måwe – despite the fact that the so-called Tidö coalition agreement between the Moderates, Christian Democrats, Liberals and the Sweden Democrats states that they should respect and not attack each other.

The leaders of the other three right-wing parties all called the revelations a violation of the Tidö agreement, but Kristersson told TT that the collaboration would continue, although he added that trust in the Sweden Democrats had been damaged. Asked whether or not it was possible to trust the Sweden Democrats, who until now have consistently denied rumours of a troll factory, he said:

“I can’t answer that right now,” adding “I think there are clear signs that they have smeared opponents.”

Sweden Democrat party secretary Mattias Bäckström Johansson reiterated on Thursday that they consider the documentary an “influence operation”, but promised to adjust some of their posts on social media in the future, specifically the ones that mention the other Tidö parties.

“We are prepared to make small adjustments to soften the tone going forward, so that we can again focus on solving important problems in society,” he told TT, saying that the posts were satire clips spread by two members of the party’s communications department.

He said the pair would be assigned other jobs until they’ve been trained in the Tidö agreement’s so-called “respect clause”, and that the Sweden Democrats had shown the other three parties a list of social media posts about those three parties that they would delete.

But the Liberals said it wasn’t enough and demanded that the Sweden Democrats close down all anonymous accounts, that the four Tidö parties halt all joint press conferences until the EU election, and that the Sweden Democrats commit to following the respect clause.

Representatives of the four parties were set to meet on Thursday afternoon.

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