Sweden News

Sweden faces hung parliament as anti-immigrant vote rises

.CLARE MacCARTHY

The Irish Times -  Monday, September 20, 2010

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SWEDEN WAS facing the prospect of a hung parliament last night after preliminary general election results indicated that an anti-immigrant party had made its parliamentary debut and robbed the government of its majority

The Sweden Democrats’ party headquarters in Stockholm erupted in cheers after polling stations closed yesterday evening and an exit poll said the newcomer had won 4.6 per cent of the vote.

According to the poll on Sweden’s TV4, prime minister Fredeik Reinfeldt’s sitting coalition, known as the Alliance, got 49.1 per cent of the vote – tantalisingly shy of an outright majority.

The opposition Social Democrats, led by Mona Sahlin, clung to its position as the country’s largest party but fell well short of its ambition to score big electoral gains.

All seven of the political parties in the outgoing parliament have publicly spurned the Sweden Democrats, saying they would not co-operate with them. Mr Reinfeldt will therefore need to curry favour from the opposition benches in order to remain in office.

These preliminary results – if borne through in the final count – show that Swedish voters have become affected by the same apprehension about immigration that has surfaced in other European countries. The Sweden Democrats’ entry into parliament is part of a trend that has produced success for the Danish People’s Party, the Freedom Party in the Netherlands and Jobbik in Hungary.

The election result also showed that Sweden’s voters had turned down another historic option: to vote into power Ms Sahlin as the country’s first female prime minister.

The Sweden Democrats, which scored just 2.9 per cent in the last election in 2006 and fell short of the 4 per cent parliamentary threshold, appear to have attracted votes from all seven of the sitting parliamentary parties. Analysts said last night that this indicates a broad-based disaffection and worries about immigration and employment.

Mr Reinfeldt’s Alliance had otherwise won much praise for its prudent handling of Sweden’s economy in recent months. The Scandinavian state has managed to pull out of recession faster than its European neighbours and is well on its way towards balancing the national books.

However, unemployment, particularly among young and poorly-educated men in provincial towns, remains a significant problem and this has proved fertile ground for the Sweden Democrats’ xenophobic rhetoric.

(the irish times.)