European elections are 1st electoral setback for Sweden’s populist party with far-right roots

Copenhagen, Denmark — Sweden’s elections to the European Parliament marked the first electoral setback for the Swedish populist party with far-right roots, which won more than 13% of the vote but came in fourth place, according to preliminary figures on Monday. That made Sweden one of the few countries in Europe where the far right is in retreat.

The Sweden Democrats won 13.2% of the vote, down 2.2%, and would retain their three seats in the European Parliament Assembly, according to preliminary figures.

They fell behind the opposition Social Democrats, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s moderate conservatives and the Greens, who made some of the biggest gains Sunday in the EU elections for Sweden’s 21 seats. The Social Democrats won almost a quarter of the vote and would get five seats, while the Moderates would get four and the Greens three.

The poor performance of the Sweden Democrats was “the biggest sensation of election night,” said Mats Knutson, a political analyst at Swedish broadcaster SVT.

He said the reasons for the poor performance could be that the party faced a storm of criticism after a television station alleged that it had been operating fake social media accounts, badmouthing opponents and political allies, spreading doctored videos and posting comments. racists. Knutson also noted that the immigration issue was not particularly important to voters this time.

Christine Nissen, an analyst at the Copenhagen-based think tank Europe, said migration was not the main issue in northern Europe, unlike in southern Europe, where “issues like migration are important to voters there.” .

The Sweden Democrats, who today support membership in the 27-member bloc, have toned down their rhetoric and expelled openly racist members. Since then, they have gone from being a fringe movement with less than 2% support to becoming the second largest party in the country.

In the 2022 national parliamentary elections, the Sweden Democrats won almost 21% of the vote, up from 17.5% in previous polls four years earlier. They benefited from growing fears of crime in largely immigrant neighborhoods in segregated districts that house large numbers of immigrants who have failed to integrate into Swedish society.

The party, which maintains a hard line on immigration, supports Sweden’s center-right tripartite government in the 349-member Riksdag, but is not part of it. Kristersson’s government has been moving towards a tougher stance against criminal gangs, increasing prison sentences for gang members and introducing stop-and-frisk zones for police to crack down on crime.