The Rise of Far-Right Swedish Parliament

On 11 September 2022, the Swedish General Elections were held. While no party has won a majority, it appears that the new government will be formed by a four-party collation of right-wing parties, provided that the second largest winner, the Sweden Democrats, can join forces with the third largest winner, the right-wing “Moderate” party.

This year has been a rocky political year in Sweden, as Sweden had just agreed to join the NATO alliance during the Ukrainian war. This election saw a polarization of the election. The largest left party, the Social Democrats, won the most votes, gaining primarily in large cities, notably in Stockholm county. The largest right-wing party, the Swedish Democrats, won many more votes, passing the Moderate Party to become the second largest party in Sweden.

The rise of the Sweden Democrats is troubling for many reasons. The party has early links with the neo-Nazi, though its leadership denied it. They also have campaigned on a platform of anti-immigration and anti-environmentalism.

Social Democrats, the largest party in Parliament

To date, the Swedish Social Democratic Party has been the most popular political party in Sweden. Since 1932, the party has always gotten more than 100 of the 349 seats and remains the largest political party in Sweden, both in terms of seats and votes. The Social Democratic Party has its roots in the Second International where many Marxist parties, then known as Social Democrats, from across the world established political parties in different countries in Europe. The party enjoys support from all over the country but has been very strong with the organized labour force.

However, since the mid-2000s, support from their core support base has been beginning to fade. Though the party is very active in its Trade Unions, the strength of trade unions has faded.

Key to crisis for the Swedish left

In the mid-1990s, Sweden was hit by the global economic crisis. To combat the crisis, the Social Democrats, who were in power at the time, began reducing government spending on welfare programs, leading to a weakening of the working class’s strength. Sweden was not nearly as drastic as many other countries, but the effects have taken a slow but decisive hit to their support base.

Since 2006, the left parties have been losing votes from two major blocks: pensioners and trade unions. Pensioners, who have left the working class, have been susceptible to alt-right media which has pushed a right-wing agenda. The alt-right media in Sweden is xenophobic and creates a sense of crisis and urgency. It blames the left and immigration for crime in Sweden.

Origins of the Swedish Democrats

After World War II, Nazism manifested itself in the form of the Swedish Opposition. The Opposition distanced itself from Nazism after the war but played a key role in protecting Nazi collaborators after the war. To protect itself, the Opposition was renamed the New Swedish Movement and continued its work.

The Neo-Nazi networks survived through the 1980s. Most of their support came from racist Swedes who wanted to defend the white race. They spread across Sweden, though they had their strongest presence in the region of Scania, a district with strong regional pride. The Neo-Nazi movement infiltrated a variety of right and centre-right political movements. These movements were politically active, campaigning on anti-feminism and xenophobia. Many of them came together in 1979 to form the Swedish Progress Party.

Swedish Democrats and the Rise of the Right:

The party was founded in 1988 as a merger of the Progress Party with even more extreme right-wing parties in Sweden. For a long time, the party remained a fringe movement with very little popular support. In the early 2000s, this changed as the party began distancing itself from its Nazi and Fascist past, and adopted more mainstream positions. The top leadership began ousting the more extreme members of the party. As a result, the Swedish Democrats began winning seats for the first time in 2010.

Syrian Refugee Crisis:

During the Syrian Civil War in 2015, many alternative news outlets took the fear-mongering. After years of blatant Islamophobia, the prospect of taking in refugees from a Muslim majority country led to greater support for right-wing policies on immigration. Support for the Swedish Democrats rose from under 10% to nearly 25% throughout the crisis. The Swedish democrats went from being a fringe right-wing party to a mainstream party.

Polarizing Elections:

Both the Social Democrats and the Sweden Democrats gain in the 2022 election, securing marginally more votes and substantially more seats. Alternative parties from across the political spectrum have lost seats and votes owing to the critical decision in front of the voters. Either support the winning party or forfeit the vote.

The Swedish Democrats have risen in the polls owing to the narrative of Swedish nationalism and Islamophobia and continue to rise in collaboration with their robust network of alt-right news sources. They insist that Sweden has been historically open to immigrants and refugees from the time of World War II, but recent changes are a bridge too far. To protect Swedish culture, it is important to drive out these new immigrants and refugees who will corrupt the culture and put Swedes at risk.

Many of the elections were won by slim margins, but as the Indian experience shows, those slim margins can mark the beginning of a right-wing turn in politics. Traditional left parties have not protected the social democratic nature of Swedish society and now, the Swedish people have begun showing support for the right, even though the support for the right is still fragmented.

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