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POLITICS

Borg and Batra climb up list of powerful Swedes

Unlike Samson, Finance Minister Anders Borg seems not to have been deprived of his powers after chopping off that signature ponytail, as he sprinted past the prime minister in an annual ranking of Sweden's most powerful people.

Published: 22 November 2013 12:50 CET
Borg and Batra climb up list of powerful Swedes
Anna Kinberg Batra and Anders Borg of the Moderate Party both landed in the top ten. File photo montage: TT/The Local

While Borg was quick to underscore that ruling the country was a "team effort", Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt had to make do with second place on the list, published on Friday by Fokus Magazine.

Fokus political editor Torbjörn Nilsson explained Borg's rise was related to the fact that all actual power had been moved over to the finance ministry,  

"Number two on the list lets this politician, who's never put his name forward in any internal election, do what he wants. Power in Sweden 2013 belongs to this newly short-haired man," the editors commented in the official list.

Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven maintained his hold on the number three spot, while Riksbank head Stefan Ingves jumped to fourth place, up from the tenth spot last year.

Jimmie Åkesson, head of the anti-immigration, far-right Sweden Democrats climbed to spot number five, up from 19th place in the 2012 ranking.

Anna Kinberg Batra of the Moderate Party also saw her star rise in the Fokus list, jumping from 15th to tenth place, the only other woman in the top ten besides Social Democrat financial policy spokeswoman Magdelena Andersson, who landed in ninth.

Fokus editors underlined that Kinberg Batra is a more likely successor to the leadership of the Moderate Party, and thus the bid for the prime minister post in the future, than Borg. 

With two women on the list, 2013 represented a 100 percent increase in females in the top-ten compared to last year.

READ ALSO: One woman makes Sweden's power top ten

"Power is still a very sensitive topic. Everybody wants it, nobody wants to talk about it," Fokus editor-in-chief Martin Ahlquist wrote in an editorial that underlined two trends in this year's list. That many Sweden Democrats were advancing in the ranking and that the boundary between politicians and businesspeople was becoming increasingly blurred, a trend which The Local has reported on previously. 

Ahlquist also pointed to the overwhelming whiteness of the list. 

"It is striking to what extent our powerbrokers, regardless of what part of society they represent, are to a large extent light skinned," he wrote. 

The first page of the Fokus spread, stretching all the way down to an oddly sun-burnt pic of former PM Göran Persson at spot 22, features people with Western European backgrounds. 

Exceptions on the list included Social Democrat rising star Ardalan Shekarabi in 68th place and author Jonas Hassen Khemiri at number 95, although there are a number of other people on the list who may have family ancestry outside Sweden such as like Dagens Nyheter (DN) managing editor Peter Wolodarski, whose parents came to Sweden from Poland in the 1960s.

Fokus Magazine's top ten most powerful people

1) Anders Borg, Moderate Party finance minister

2) Fredrik Reinfeldt, Moderate Party leader and prime minister

3) Stefan Löfven, Social Democrat leader

4) Stefan Ingves, head of the Swedish national bank the Riksbank

5) Jimmie Åkesson, Sweden Democrat leader

6) Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson, head of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO)

7) Carl Bildt, Moderate Party foreign minister

8) Jan Björklund, Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) leader, education minister, and depute prime minister

9) Magdalena Andersson, Social Democrat shadow finance minister

10) Anna Kinberg Batra, Moderate Party leader in parliament

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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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