pic: expressen.se
As DN’s Ewa Sandberg put it, the Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson ripped the bandaid off, and had an official chinwag today with Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats. The taboo of speaking to Åkesson in an official capacity has officially been challenged, even more than when the Christian Democratic party leader had lunch with him. DN’s editorial board called it “wrong”, and “ill-judged”, and “unwise” – because the Sweden Democrats (SD) are “not a party like the others. It’s a movement with roots in nazism” (DN.se/bandaid).
The latest and most stodgy poll of them all, the poll done twice a year by Statistics Sweden, had the Social Democrats at their lowest level in years (for the SCB poll) at 26.3% and the Sweden Democrats at their highest, with 22.6%. The Moderate party, who has almost always been Sweden’s second most popular party and opposition leader, was, again, a decided third (DN.se/SCBpoll).
When he was first elected party leader, Kristersson said he would never speak with, negotiate or compromise with the Sweden Democrats. But that was over two years ago, when it was still possible to bully them in parliament, and not let them join in any reindeer games. SD has since only become more popular, and nearly a quarter of the population is giving them the thumbs up. For the Moderate party (still the party that knows what fork to use between them) to gain power and get its policies through parliament to make its supporters happy, it needs SD. The Moderates appear to have given up the idea of getting the previous Alliance together completely, and are throwing a feather of their hat in with the Sweden Democrats. Rubicon, crossed.
As previously noted in this blog, the Sweden Democrats have had it easy, having never had to face the music for their enacted politics because they’ve never had the chance to enact any of their policies on a national scale (just in Sölvesborg and the jury is out over there).
But even if the majority of Sweden’s voters might someday vote for SD, which isn’t likely, maybe it won’t really matter – because according to Dagens Nyheter “the majority is never definitively right, even if it calls itself “the people” (DN.se/bandaid). Some people might think a statement like that is even more scary than SD.