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Day of reckoning? Swedish parties anxiously await key poll results

Who are the winners and the losers in Sweden's biggest political opinion poll of the year?

Published: 1 June 2017 07:42 CEST

Day of reckoning? Swedish parties anxiously await key poll results

From left, Isabella Lövin of the Green Party, the Christian Democrats' Ebba Busch Thor, the Sweden Democrats' Jimmie Åkesson and the Moderates' Anna Kinberg Batra at a party leader debate. Photo: Maja

National number-crunching agency Statistics Sweden is set to present the results of the major political survey at 9.30am, detailing how voters would cast their ballot if an election were held today.

The poll, which quizzed 9,000 people in May, is released twice a year and is considered a key indicator of voters' sympathies.

It is expected to confirm a drop for the biggest centre-right opposition party, the Moderates, which has been polling poorly this year following its decision to open the door to cooperation with the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, breaking a long-standing taboo in the Swedish Riksdag.

This week calls were heard within the party for leader Anna Kinberg Batra to be replaced before the 2018 election, although other senior members of the party threw their support behind her.

ANALYSIS: What does the crisis in the opposition mean for Sweden?

Some of the smaller parties are also expected to be keeping a close eye on the survey results.

According to another recent poll presented just days ago, support for the Green Party, which is the junior partner in the centre-left coalition government, had dropped to 3.6 percent, while the opposition's Christian Democrats ended up at 3.5 percent. If an election were held today, it would mean neither party would get the four percent required to be represented in parliament.

In that poll, Svensk väljaropinion by pollsters Sifo, the ruling Social Democrats became the biggest party at 27.9 percent, followed by the Sweden Democrats at 17.9 percent.

'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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