The continued rise of the far-right in Sweden

24-09-22

Jakob Lindelöf

Intern for the European Team, 

Global Human Rights Defence

On September 11th, 2022, the Swedish general elections took place, which saw continued gains for the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) since the previous elections. The final results in the parliament (Riksdagen) saw the win of the right-bloc (consisting in part of the Sweden Democrats) with 176 votes against the left’s 173 seats. This means that the current sitting government of Social Democrats under Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, whilst obtaining the most votes and maintaining position as the biggest party, their coalition does not have the majority of seats in parliament to form a new government.

The biggest upset of the election were the increased gains made by the far-right Sweden Democrats, who took the position as second-biggest party (with 20.5 percent of the votes) from the Moderates (Sweden’s conservative party) who in this election gained only 19.1 percent. This has followed the trend in recent elections, which has seen a significant increase in the support for the far-right at the expense of the conservative party (Väljarströmmar, 2022). Traditionally the Moderates have been the second-biggest party in parliament since 1979 until the 2022 election. Despite this setback, they are expected to form the next government with Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson as Prime Minister but with support from the Sweden Democrats.

SD has campaigned on issues focused on restricting immigration and imposing a harder stance against criminals, including harsher punishment and increased jail time, among other things (Sverigedemokraternas Valplattform, 2022). They have also supported repatriation of immigrants who have come to Sweden, sparking controversy with a tweet that said “Next stop, Kabul” on a picture of a train carrying the party logo, which was criticised as being racist (Sköld, 2022). The party was founded in 1988 by previous members of nationalist parties, with one of the founders being a volunteer in the Waffen SS during World War 2 (Sverigedemokraterna, 2022). Today its connection to extremism and nazism is still prevalent, with a reported 214 candidates to the parliament being connected to far-right extremism and Nazism (Lindström, 2022). Despite the growing support of the far-right, the question now remains on how much power and influence they will have in forming the next government as there is opposition from the Liberal Party (in the right-bloc) to SD’s direct participation in the next government.

Sources and Further Reading

Lindström, A. (2022, August 26). Över 250 kandidater i riksdagspartierna kan kopplas till 

högerextremism. SVT Nyheter. Retrieved from https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/over-250-politiker-kan-kopplas-till-hogerextremism

Sköld, H. (2022, August 19). Är SD:s Kabuk-tweet valrörelsen mest effektiva politiska 

kommunikation?. SVT Nyheter. Retrieved from https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/sverigedemokraterna-tweet-om-tunnelbana-kabul-genomslag

Sverigedemokraternas Valplattform. (2022). Inriktningsprogram för Sverigedemokraternas 

inflytande över svensk politik under nästa mandatperiod. Sverigedemokraterna. 

https://sd.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/sverigedemokraternas-valplattform-2022-april.pdf

Sverigedemokraterna (SD). (2021, November 23). Expo. Retrieved from 

https://expo.se/fakta/wiki/sverigedemokraterna-sd

Väljarströmmar. (2022, 11 September). SVT Nyheter. Retrieved from 

https://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/valu2022/valjarstrommar/