In the September 11 elections, the far-right Swedish Democrats came in second with 20.5% and first among right-wing coalition parties. We asked Anne-Catherine Jungar, a political scientist who specializes in studying far-right parties, to take an x-ray of the party.

“His voters share a distrust of immigration, the integration of immigrants, a distrust of political parties and the media. They believe that the media is covering up the facts about immigration and its consequences. The party also talks about pensions and the welfare state. He embraces a kind of welfare state chauvinism by associating it with immigration, arguing that money to receive immigrants is taken from the welfare state.

– It depends. When people from Syria and Afghanistan came to Sweden, their health was certainly worse than that of the Swedes, i.e. they had a great need for dental care. As you know, our healthcare system is in crisis, we have a very long waiting time. There are grounds for the rhetoric of these parties. When they talk about high crime, again they talk about immigration. Even when they refer to other issues, they link them to immigration in one way or another. When they talk about other cultures and other customs, they mean Muslims and Islam. Indeed, persons born abroad are overrepresented in crime statistics. Finding this information is a tricky business in Sweden, statistics by place of origin are not published. This may change now, after review. Statistical data is a measure for the state to plan interventions. In Norway they give.

– The party turned out to be very professional, very productive. They started out as fascists, neo-Nazis, skinheads in 1998, and for that reason other parties expelled them. The party then turned moderate when Jimmy Okeson was elected to the leadership in 2005 directly from the position of youth leader. His idea was to bring the party closer to the political center. He saw that the Danish People’s Party, which also spoke about immigration and Islam, offered parliamentary support to a right-wing government for ten years and thereby changed Denmark’s immigration policy. It took several years for the Swedish Democrats to take the same position because they were stigmatized.

– Not. This is not an anti-democratic party, not a Nazi or fascist organization. There are other such parties in Sweden that say that if they come to power, they will replace democracy with something else. The Swedish Democrats used to be against abortion and for the death penalty, now everything has changed. Their idea of ​​what it means to be Swedish is not biological, they say that you can become a Swede if you speak Swedish and embrace Swedish values. They support adoption rights for same-sex couples. They used to call for Sweden’s exit from the European Union, but now see no reason to do so, backing Sweden’s request to join NATO.

Immigrant

Ann-Katrin Jungar, professor of political science at Stockholm Södertern University, studies right-wing parties.
in Europe with a special focus on the Nordic countries. He notes that the rhetoric of the Swedish Democrats has drawn not only the Conservative Party of new Prime Minister Ulf Christersen, but also the Social Democrats into a tougher anti-immigration policy. “Voters saw Okeson’s party as more authoritative on this issue,” he says.