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POLITICS

Borg best in popularity stakes

Swedish finance minister Anders Borg is ranked highly by his party colleagues while defence minister Sten Tolgfors and trade minister Ewa Björling scored low in the popularity stakes among their peers.

Published: 30 December 2008 14:55 CET

The finance minister claimed the backing of 71 percent of the Alliance coalition when politicians were given the chance to rate the performance of their political seniors. Only 3 percent meanwhile approved of the defence minister’s efforts.

Tolgfors is second from bottom among government ministers. Only trade minister Ewa Björling scores less, with a lowly two percent approval rating.

The figures were presented by Sveriges Radio and have been collected from a survey of 1,119 leading local government politicians in the four Alliance parties. 66 percent of the surveys sent were returned and the replies were equally divided across the coalition parties.

One of the questions addressed whether the respondent felt that any of the current ministers should leave the government. There were no votes for a new prime minister and only 1 percent of replies called for a change in finance minister.

But more than 20 percent opined that Sten Tolgfors should be replaced and almost as many would like to see the back of former Liberal Party leader Lars Leijonborg. Local councillor Bengt Sylvan in Stockholm suburb Danderyd is one of those who would like to see Tolgfors replaced.

“He is incredibly weak as defence minister and he is also a conscientious objector,” Sylvan said to Ekot.

The defence minister was unwilling to comment on his popularity ranking. Tolgfors it seems is at least able to draw on support from his home base of Örebro.

“This is not fair. Sten Tolgfors is doing a good job and carries out the ambitions set out by the Alliance at the last election – to keep the departments managed and running smoothly,” said party ombudsman Jan Zetterström.

Zetterstöm is confident that Tolgfors can feel secure and that he will be renominated for his parliamentary seat.

“The members know the job that he has done and the work he is doing now.”

Sten Tolgfors replaced Mikael Oldenberg as defence minister in September 2007. Oldenberg left the government in protest over cuts in the defence budget. Oldenberg is considered to have done a particularly good job by 21 percent of the local politicians surveyed.

The four party leaders are all among the top six in the rankings table. Aside from Anders Borg they are joined by foreign minister Carl Bildt who claims fourth place, ahead of Centre Party leader Maud Olofsson and health and social affairs minister Göran Hägglund.

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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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