SWEDEN: Rise of Far- Right Party w Neo- Nazi Roots Both Expected & Shocking, Natl. Elections - NYT
The New York Times, *Sept. 15, 2022. - Ed..
- The Swedish Democrats, with roots in neo -Nazism, came in 2nd in national elections and will have a powerful influence on a new center right government. -
STOCKHOLM — The rise of the far-right Sweden Democrats to become the country’s 2nd -largest party, with a claim to government, has been a slow-moving earthquake over the past decade. But even as their success in Sunday’s election seemed inevitable, it still had the ability to shock. The world still regards Sweden as a bedrock of Nordic liberalism, and its move toward the more populist right, based on grievances about crime, migration, identity and globalization — & the way they affect health care, schools & taxes — has been slower than in other countries. So the election’s result was something of a wake-up call.
“Sweden is very much an ideologically charged nation, & in part because we had such an idyllic 20th c. we thought we could afford it,” said Robert Dalsjo, director of studies at the Swedish Defense Research Agency. “So the popular discontent over globalization & migration & crime we saw in Trump took longer to leak itself through the protective structures of the establishment here.” The Sweden Democrats have been gaining political ground and a form of respectability for some time now, much like other Nordic far-right populist parties, including the Danish People’s Party & Norway’s Progress Party. But the Sweden Democrats, founded in 1988 with roots in neo-Nazism, are probably closer to the parties of Marine Le Pen in France & Giorgia Meloni in Italy, whose Brothers of Italy has roots in Mussolini’s Fascist Party...
Ms. Meloni & her party are considered so normalized now that she is on track to become Italy’s prime minister in elections in 10 days’ time.
That is not in the cards for the leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Akesson, whose party was the largest vote winner in what is expected to be a center-right coalition. The bloc of right-wing parties previously agreed to support a government led by the center-right Moderate Party, but not one led by the Sweden Democrats. They will most likely not even take cabinet seats in a government led by Ulf Kristersson, leader of the Moderates, a conservative party.
But Mr. Kristersson, who would become prime minister, will need the support of Sweden Democrats in Parliament, as well as that of 2 other parties, the Christian Democrats & the Liberals. He has made it clear that his support will be expensive in terms of government policy. “If we are going to support a government that we’re not sitting in, it’s going to cost,” he said before the vote. The Sweden Democrats’ showing in the election provided the center right a thin majority of 3 votes in Parliament, prompting the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Magdalena Andersson, to resign on Thursday & throwing Sweden into several weeks of political maneuvering. Negotiations to form a new government will be complicated, & it will take several weeks at least, with some hoping to have a new prime minister by month’s end...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/world/europe/sweden-election-far-right.html
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- NPR, A Far Right Party in Sweden Has Grown More Influential in Recent Years, Sept. 14, 2022,
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/14/1122895327/a-far-right-party-in-sweden-has-grown-more-influential-in-recent-years
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- France24, 'Swedish Society Has Changed': The Rise of the Far- Right Sweden -Democrats, Sept. 20, 2022,
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/perspective/20220920-swedish-society-has-changed-the-rise-of-the-far-right-sweden-democrats
