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SWEDEN ELECTS

Sweden Elects: Sign up to receive The Local’s new election newsletter

If you want to keep up to date and informed on Swedish politics ahead of the crucial autumn election then sign up to The Local's new election newsletter Sweden Elects. Here's how:

Published: 13 June 2022 15:54 CEST
Updated: 20 June 2022 10:22 CEST

Sweden Elects: Sign up to receive The Local's new election newsletter

Sweden's party leaders await the start of a party leader debate on TV4 earlier this month. Photo: Fredrik Persson /TT

Sweden is facing a landmark election in September, with a win for the opposition bringing the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats their first chance to form national policy, and a win for the government putting the Social Democrats in power for the third term in a row.

As usual, The Local will bring you all the news and analysis over the coming months to keep you up to date and help you understand just what’s at stake.

This year we are offering members of The Local (non-members will have to join before signing up) something exclusive and different that will help foreign residents in Sweden really understand all the different political issues at play during the election and how you could be affected.

From Monday July 4th – to coincide with the Almedalen political festival – The Local’s editor Emma Löfgren will publish a weekly election column and newsletter just for members that you can receive directly into your inbox.

The newsletter – called “Sweden Elects” – will give readers all the latest political analysis and also break down the big election battleground issues such as law and order, migration, schools, and healthcare so foreign residents can understand exactly how they might be impacted by the result.

If you’re a member you can sign up for the newsletter now simply by adding your email address to the box above in this article. You can also just select “Sweden Elects” on your newsletter options. You’ll receive the newsletter as an email each Monday throughout the campaign and the following weeks.

Readers who are not paying members of The Local would need to join before signing up to the newsletter.

If you have any questions about the upcoming election, whether it’s about how it works or about some of the key political issues, don’t forget you can email our team at [email protected].

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'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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