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Far-right Sweden Democrats reach record high in opinion polls

The far-right Sweden Democrats have reached their highest ever level of support, according to the latest party sympathy survey carried out by national number-crunching agency Statistics Sweden.

Published: 4 December 2019 07:23 CET
Far-right Sweden Democrats reach record high in opinion polls
Sweden Democrat leader Jimmi Åkesson speaking in a parliamentary debate. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg / TT

Meanwhile the Social Democrats (S), who are currently governing in coalition with the Green Party, have seen a sharp drop in support.

The Sweden Democrats (SD) achieved their best ever result in the Statistics Sweden poll with 22.6 percent, which would make them the second biggest party. According to Statistics Sweden, that translates to almost 1.7 million SD voters, or 412,000 more than in the last such poll in May. Since then, the party has seen a 5.5 point increase.

The party's deputy spokesperson Henrik Vinge said he was “proud and pleased” by the apparent growth in support, and said it was due to his party's anti-immigration stance.

Vinge noted that his party had “drawn a link between mass immigration and growing criminality and between mass immigration and the costs that mean we can't afford welfare and healthcare in Sweden”. 

Sweden's system of bloc politics and proportional representation means that even if the Sweden Democrats emerge as the largest or second largest party in the 2022 general election, they may still not be able to enter government. That would depend on whether they could negotiate a deal with other parties, most likely the Moderates (M) and Christian Democrats (KD) who after the last election were open to governing together with SD support.

It was a disagreement over whether the conservative parties would accept so-called passive support from the SD that led to the breakdown of the four-party centre-right Alliance, made up of the Moderates, Christian Democrats, Centre Party and Liberal Party. The latter two parties ultimately chose to offer their passive support to the Social Democrat-Green coalition — meaning they are not in government but allow the centre-left parties to govern in exchange for a say on some policies — rather than be part of a government backed by the SD.

The Social Democrats received their worst result ever at 26.3 percent, despite remaining the largest individual party. That meant a 1.3 point fall from the May survey.

“We are in a January deal, which is good for Sweden as a whole but which has also cost us some trust, since there are parts which have been unpopular proposals,” Social Democrat party secretary Lena Rådström Baastad said, referring to the four-party government deal agreed at the start of this year. 

“At the same time, we can say that people are concerned about how healthcare works and whether welfare retains the quality they expect. Here we see a great responsibility for ourselves, we are going to need to prioritize welfare in every coming budget negotiation,” she added. 

The centre-right Moderates are now just the third most popular party in government with 18.3 percent of the support in the poll, which was however an increase from the May result of 16 percent. And the Christian Democrats performed the worst in the poll, with their support almost halving from 13 percent in May to only 6.6 percent.

The Liberals had risen slightly to gain 4.1 percent in the latest poll, while the Centre Party noted a small rise to reach 7.3 percent.

The Left Party and Green Party saw a decline in support, falling to 8.1 percent and 5.1 percent respectively. 

All in all, this means that a potential conservative bloc made up of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats would be almost equal to a bloc made of the four parties who are included in the January deal plus the Left Party, whose passive support is needed for the deal to function. The former grouping gets 47.5 percent and the latter 50.9 percent.

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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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