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Parliamentary Elections in Sweden: Political Stability versus Rejection of Immigrants?

Sweden's policies are already anti-immigration, but the rise of the far-right might make them even more so, according to al-Hal Net.
Parliamentary Elections in Sweden: Political Stability versus Rejection of Immigrants?

Preliminary results of the vote count in the Swedish parliamentary elections showed that the center-left Social Democratic Party, the ruling party, won first place with 29.3 percent, while the Democrats of Sweden from the far right anti-immigration came in second place with 20.5 percent, and the party of moderates from the conservative right came in third place with 18.8 percent. 

According to the state-run SVT television channel, with the far-right Sweden Democrats receiving 20.5 percent of the vote, it has become the country’s second-largest party. 

The right-wing bloc’s parties received 49.2 percent of the vote and won 173 seats in the 394-seat parliament, while the ruling left-wing bloc parties received 49.8 percent of the vote to win 176 seats. 

Ihab Abd Rabbo, a Syrian lawyer and rights activist based in Sweden, believes that there is a big political problem in Sweden, and there is no political stability at all. While speaking to Al-Hal Net, he said wouldn’t be easy to form a Swedish government. The Social Democratic Party indeed progressed, but there is a problem in this matter, which is that some parties do not cooperate with the racist party– the Democrats of Sweden. 

This is in addition to a legal problem, which is that the largest party in the Swedish parliament is obliged to form a government, and if it fails to do so, the party that follows it in number is authorized to establish the government. In which case, if the Social Democratic Party fails to establish it, the task moves to the racist party, and thus will create a big problem there and enter the country into the stage of the unknown, in the words of Abd Rabbo. 

Proceedings against migrants 

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said it was still difficult to predict the outcome of Sweden’s parliamentary elections.   

“Polling stations are closed, but we will not get a final result tonight,” she told party members, Reuters reported. 

The leader of the anti-immigration Swedish Democrats party said the bloc of right-wing political parties was likely heading for victory in Sunday’s election. Speaking to party members, Jimmie Akesson added: “At the moment it looks like there will be a change in power.”   

Abd Rabbo pointed out that there is a scenario that Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was working on before the elections, which is to invite the Liberal Party to participate in the government of the left in exchange for giving them a role in ministerial positions and so on. However, this has not yet shown its results. 

As for the possibility of adopting an anti-immigration policy in Sweden, Abd Rabbo believes that the current Swedish policy is fundamentally anti-immigration, meaning that the current law in Sweden is not desirable for refugees.

 

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.

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