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POLITICS

IN BRIEF: What’s Sweden’s newest party and what does it want?

Two of Sweden's most divisive political figures have launched Folklistan, a new party with just a few months to go until the EU elections.

Published: 11 April 2024 14:49 CEST
Updated: 13 April 2024 15:51 CEST
IN BRIEF: What's Sweden's newest party and what does it want?
Sara Skyttedal and Jan Emanuel board a helicopter after presenting their new party. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

What’s Folklistan?

A new party started up by ousted Christian Democrat MEP Sara Skyttedal and former Social Democrat MP Jan Emanuel.

What do they want?

They’re running for the election to the European Parliament in June.

As for their political platform, they had by mid-April put forward only two policies (but another eight are expected): scrapping asylum rights and renegotiating Sweden’s EU membership. Neither of these issues are single-handedly initiated or decided by the European Parliament.

They say they prefer not to think of themselves as a traditional party, and more like a gathering of politicians who are fed up with having to toe the party line, such as Skyttedal from a right-wing Christian Democrat background and Emanuel from the centre-left Social Democrats.

Who are they?

The party’s two main figureheads are Jan Emanuel and Sara Skyttedal.

Skyttedal, after a history of butting heads with Christian Democrat management, was in January abruptly replaced as the party’s top EU candidate on the grounds that she had betrayed her party by offering help to the Sweden Democrats after the Christian Democrats had already tried to remove her.

Emanuel has previously held political roles for the Social Democrats, including on a municipal level and as a member of parliament. He also won the Swedish version of Survivor in 2001. He has long advocated for a more open relationship with the far-right Sweden Democrats and in the run-up to the 2022 election took part in a so-called “conversation tour” with Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson among others.

EUROPEAN ELECTIONS:

The party’s other four top candidates so far are:

Hans Palo, a Social Democrat from Övertorneå in northern Sweden.

Amilia Stapelfeldt, a political influencer who defines herself as independent-liberal but with her background in the Moderates.

Peter Söderlund, a former senior member of the Green Party who helped start up Kris, an organisation that helps former criminals return to a life without crime.

Håkan Wretsell, a former Christian Democrat and founder of local party Bättre Vellinge in the far south of Sweden.

Their ballot is however described as open, which means anyone can join and run for the EU parliament.

How will they fare in the EU election?

The party consists of a motley crew of people so it’s hard to say. 

Neither Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch, nor Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson seemed too worried when they were asked by reporters, although Andersson pointed out that she thought the risk they would snatch voters from right-wing parties was greater than from the left.

Then again, Skyttedal has built up a lot of personal support over the years and Emanuel has a huge social media following. And even if they don’t manage to get into the European Parliament themselves, their performance could affect other parties’ chances of winning seats.

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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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