Whether the center-right coalition can actually take over government business in Sweden will only become clear when the final result is announced on Wednesday. The big winners of the parliamentary elections are nevertheless known: the right-wing Sweden Democrats are now the second-strongest party in the country.
Jimmie Akesson, head of the right-wing Sweden Democrats, experienced a triumphant election night in Stockholm on Sunday.
Richard Jomshof, party secretary of the right-wing Sweden Democrats, was brimming with confidence as he made the rounds on various news programs in Sweden on Monday morning after election night. “Now we will make completely different demands, everything must be on the table,” he said on television. “Ministerial posts, the office of prime minister, the presidency of parliament.”
These were tones the likes of which had never been heard from a party that had been largely excluded from parliamentary politics for years. But this party is now after the Social Democrats second largest in the Swedish Riksdag. And if the bourgeois-conservative block of four to which she belongs, in the definitive election result expected for Wednesday retains its wafer-thin majoritywhich it looked like on Monday, is the leading party of this bloc in terms of size.
Counterproductive effect of marginalization
In Sweden, this upsets certainties that had lasted for decades. For example, that the liberal-bourgeois party of moderates is the “natural” opponent of the social democrats and thus provides either the leader of the opposition or the prime minister.
Broad sections of the population in Sweden are uncomfortable with the steady increase in popularity of the right-wing nationalists. But this does not come unexpectedly. Issues such as immigration, social segregation and crime have figured prominently in public debate for years. These are issues that the Sweden Democrats are very fond of talking about.
They have also seen important other parties revise their earlier positions on these issues and adopt a more restrictive line – even the Social Democrats. When, in the last big television debate before the elections, the Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson spoke of tougher penalties for gang crime, more police presence and higher demands on the willingness of migrants to integrate, she gave the leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Akesson, a through ball for the comment that it did one «always said». Only one was excluded from the relevant cross-block working group in Parliament.
The marginalization of the Sweden Democrats by the other parliamentary parties has not worked. On the contrary, it has meant that the right-wing nationalists have been able to build up an image as a party that is the only one to address a range of issues that others are trying to keep silent about. Because the Sweden Democrats were undesirable as a discussion partner, there was never a risk that they would have had to work on politically viable solutions, along with the responsibility that went with it.
Who is the boss now?
At least to the right of center, the Sweden Democrats have now found their way out of isolation and are to some extent accepted as partners by the other parties in the alliance, the conservatives, the Christian Democrats and the liberals. However, the fact that they are now the largest party in this group creates the next problem.
The implicit scenario was that if the centre-right bloc won the elections, the conservatives would lead the government together with the Christian Democrats and the Liberals. The Sweden Democrats would have played the role of a silent coalition partner, although certain political concessions would be made in the joint program. That would have alleviated the problem that ministerial posts for the Sweden Democrats would not necessarily go down well with the wider society.
But as the largest right-of-centre party, the right-wing nationalists are now closer to actual power than ever before and want to seize it directly instead of just pulling the strings from the background. It is an open question, however, whether things can go well when they, as an “eternal protest party”, are suddenly judged by their electorate on the basis of real decisions, compromises and probably also failures.
In Finland, for example, the similarly positioned True Finns have broken down over the responsibilities of government. Although its radical wing has now regained almost its old strength, it only functions as a reservoir for the dissatisfied in the opposition.
In Denmark, on the other hand, after 2015 the right-wing national Danish People’s Party tried to play the role of the silent coalition partner of a liberal-conservative minority government, controlling from the background; This was after it had become the second strongest party behind the Social Democrats and the strongest on the right wing in the elections, analogous to the current result of the Sweden Democrats, with a good 20 percent. Four years later, she paid for the experiment of this balancing act with a defeat of epic proportions.
It is difficult to say whether high-level politicians and the electorate in Sweden are mentally ready for a right-wing national party to hold power. But if the Sweden Democrats managed to collect one out of five votes cast, they should be taken seriously as a political and social factor – with all the reservations that one can have about them with good reason.