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The final result of Sweden’s election may still be unknown, but it is already clear who the biggest winners are: the nationalist Sweden Democrats.
Long ostracized from the political mainstream because of their roots in the neo-Nazi movement, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats are now the largest party among the right-wing opposition, narrowly leading the ruling left-wing bloc with a completely provisional result only due to Wednesday.
A word was on the lips of many Sweden Democrats MPs who spoke to the Financial Times at a raucous party on Sunday night on the outskirts of Stockholm. “It’s revenge,” said Henrik Vinge, deputy manager.
Linus Bylund, its chief of staff, added: “It is revenge because the other parties have treated us badly – even the three [rightwing] parties on our site. But time passes and time heals.”
Should the right-wing bloc win, the Sweden Democrats will for the first time have influence at national level in the country, and only Germany, France and Belgium will be left with a so-called cordon sanitaire around their right-wing extremist parties. The current gap to the ruling left-wing coalition is only 47,000 votes, equivalent to the average size of one constituency mandate.
Since bringing the Sweden Democrats in from the cold for the past two years by allying with them on issues such as crime and immigration, the mainstream centre-right bloc has said it does not want the nationalists in government, but merely as a support party in parliament.
But the Sweden Democrats are likely to make even bigger demands now that they appear to have won more votes than probably Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s Moderates to become the second largest party. Around 95 percent of the votes have already been counted, and the centre-left Social Democrats continue their record of coming out on top in every election since 1917.
“We want to go into government,” said Richard Jomshof, party secretary. “There is a lot of pressure from our voters. I’m not sure they would be content to stay out of government.” He even suggested the party could claim the post of prime minister, something the three centre-right parties in a potential coalition are unlikely to agree to.
The Sweden Democrats are based in southern Sweden, the point of entry for most immigrants and notorious for deadly shootings in the city of Malmö.
It also means that the party knows well the fate of its sister group just on the other side of the Øresund. The Danish People’s Party shocked the establishment in Copenhagen in 2015 by becoming the largest right-wing group, but refused to enter government. It has since been all but wiped out in Denmark’s opinion polls as voters appear to have punished the party for refusing to join, while the centre-left has stolen many of its policies.
“The Danish People’s Party’s biggest mistake was that they never dared to take an active part in the government. We would like to. I am not here for the sake of the Sweden Democrats. I want to bring about change in Sweden,” said Jomshof.
The Sweden Democrats caused a shock wave when they first entered parliament in 2010. Political stability has been increasingly elusive since then, as mainstream parties tried to deny them influence.
Forced to govern twice with a right-wing coalition, Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson resigned after just seven hours in the job at the end of last year and was only saved by a Swedish-Kurdish member of parliament who later nearly derailed the country’s application for to become a member of NATO.
Kristersson, whose moderate party lost ground despite promises to tackle crime and immigration, tried to present himself as a potential prime minister, saying he would try to unite the nation as it moved closer to NATO membership and taking over the EU the presidency on 1 January.
But he faces a real battle to assemble a viable coalition if the results are confirmed. A one-man majority would test his ability to unite the Liberals and the Sweden Democrats.
Anders Borg, former moderate finance minister, said he believed there would be a right-wing government. “On the crucial issues like migration, fiscal policy, energy and investment, I don’t think the differences will be that big,” he said.
Borg, whose wife is of Jewish origin, played down fears about the Sweden Democrats’ roots, saying they were now a “centre-right party”, adding: “I don’t think people are that worried. Sweden will be the same.”
The Sweden Democrats would join other anti-immigration parties in the Nordics to gain influence after the Progress Party went into government in Norway and the True Finns in Finland. But none of them had their origins in a movement quite like the “Keep Sweden Swedish”.
The nationalists claim they are ready for power, pointing to their experience in Sölvesborg, a small southern town where a party member was mayor, and where they increased their share of the vote on Sunday by 10 percentage points.
They feel they are also reaping the benefits of having consistently warned that Sweden’s immigration policy – among the most generous in Europe until a crackdown on arrivals from 2015 – would lead to a rise in crime.
“Consistency helps. This is a business of trust. Being conservative, our voters count on us standing firm. We are the party that has changed the least over the past 20 years,” Bylund said.
As the throbbing techno beats of their party faded away on Sunday, the euphoria remained for the Sweden Democrats, on the cusp of national influence for the first time. Jomshof said: “This is an incredible milestone. For the first time we are a legitimate partner in a new government. We are not alone anymore.”
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