In Sweden, Europe’s Drift To The Right Continues
“>ZeroHedge.com
Wed, 09/12/2018
“Populism” seemed to have suffered a premature death a year ago. Emmanuel Macron had beaten Marine Le Pen in the French presidential elections, Dutch right-winger Geert Wilders had underperformed massively, and the EU had found — or at least thought to have found — new popularity all around Europe. After a turbulent 2016, in which the UK voted to exit the EU, and which saw Donald Trump become US president, everything seemed well again.
Ever since, however, the tide has turned again, and Europe’s drift to the right, coupled with the ongoing demise of center-left parties, has continued. Highlights of the past year included a strong performance by the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany (they are polling second behind Angela Merkel’s CDU right now), a right-wing coalition government in Austria, and the Italian election in March, which saw two “populist” movements come to power together (and since then causing havoc on the European level).
The next blow was just a matter of time, though. It arrived yesterday in the Swedish elections for its Riksdag, i.e., its parliament, the right-wing Swedish Democrats made big gains, ending up in third place with 17.6 percent of the vote, closely following the Moderate Party at 19.8 percent. The strongest party, the Social Democrats, despite remaining first, still lost ground, standing at 28.4 percent (which is its worst result since 1908).
While the results need to be taken with caution — the votes of Swedish expats living abroad are not included yet and will only be released sometime this week — it seems clear already: the right-wing “populists” once again performed well. However finding a coalition government will be tough for everyone involved.
The Sweden Democrats (SD) have always been the subject of controversy since their founding. Indeed, this very founding is most problematic: the party was established by fascists and at the beginning deeply aligned with the neo-Nazi movement. But in the nineties, it started to move away from this connection. In the last years, as it has become more popular, the SD has adopted a zero-tolerance policy on racism, which led to several members being expelled.
Today, the Sweden Democrats try to disrupt the status quo and destroy the party duopoly between the Moderates and the Social Democrats. This feeling can easily be seen in what Tobias Andersson, the head of the party’s youth wing, said: “Voters want to see more action. They want to feel something is actually happening, that it is not the same old boring politics.”
At the same time, the SD is a one-issue movement, almost exclusively focusing on immigration — and demanding a much stricter approach to it. Other than that, little is known about the views of the party. On economic policy for instance, the program is a mishmash of rather vague promises: lip service for entrepreneurs and against labor market regulations, taxes should be cut here and there. But at the same time, working conditions in the public sector have to be improved, and unemployment insurance needs to be made compulsory. “Health care must be available all over our country, no matter the size of our wallets,” and “the elderly get a pension they can live off, for real.”
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