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Swedes abandon political parties in droves

Sweden’s political parties continue to shed members, as parties on the right and the left together saw thousands drop from their membership rolls in 2008.

Published: 20 February 2009 14:03 CET

Swedes abandon political parties in droves

The Moderate Party lost 6,400 members last year, according to a study carried out by the Dagens Samhälle magazine.

Over the last two years, the party’s membership has shrunk by 20 percent, and now stands at 54,858.

Together, five of the seven parties represented in the Riksdag lost a total of 9,000 members last year,

Calculations for the Left Party and the Centre Party have yet to be completed, but both parties also forecast a drop in membership.

The Christian Democrats have lost 1,100 members, bringing their total to 22,919 at the turn of the year, and Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) membership has shrunk by 900 members to 17,799.

While the Social Democrats also continue to lose members, the rate of attrition has level-off since from 2007 when the party shed 19,000 members. In 2008, only 519 supporters left the party.

Only the Green Party experienced an upswing in members in 2008, adding a modest 65 members, for a total of 9,110.

Sweden’s traditional political parties have been declining since the early 1990s. Since then, the number of people who belong to the parties has been cut in half.

At the same time, smaller political parties not currently represented in the Riksdag have seen their memberships swell.

The Pirate Party has added a lot of members, but all that’s required to join is the click of a mouse in the party’s homepage.

As the debate out file sharing has raged over the last four months, the party has added 4,000 members, bringing its total to more than 10,000.

The far-right Sweden Democrats, meanwhile, added 400 members last year and now have a total of 3,300.

Dagens Samhälle magazine, which carried out the study, is published by Sweden’s Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR), which represents governing bodies at the county and local level.

'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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