Far-right and liberals forming a government in Sweden?
Photo by lilzidesigns via Unsplash
One of my favorite liberal opinion-makers in Sweden, Andreas Johansson Heinoe, working at the market-liberal think-tank Timbro, has recently written for the daily Dagens Nyheter an article regarding liberals, Swedish nationalists, and the upcoming elections.
During the 2018 elections in Sweden, the Liberal Party (Liberalerna) communicated that the party was acting against nationalists, populists, and socialists. Contemporary party leader Jan Bjoerklund made several statements about the danger of nationalism in Sweden, mainly regarding political nationalism and the far-right politics concerning Europe, openness, and democracy. Bjoerklund declared that his party would never cooperate nor make agreements with the far-right Sweden Democrats. This party started as a neo-nazi and radical nationalist party at the end of the 1980s.
Things changed after the 2018 elections as the new party leader Nyamko Sabuni took over the party. Sabuni and her core supporters decided that the Liberal Party should end its governmental cooperation with the Social Democrats and the Green Party by shifting to cooperating with the Conservative (Moderate) Party and Christian Democrats, both belonging to EPP. However, this position resulted in a large split, division, and internal conflict in the party since cooperation with the two conservative parties in practice meant either formal or informal cooperation with the far-right Sweden Democrats.
One of the problems for the Liberal Party is the situation regarding ideology and storytelling. The party is one of the oldest political parties in world history, created during the 1880s. For most of its existence, the party has been a movement driven by ideas, visions, and ideological principles. However, due to different reasons, the party has, in modern times, become more issue-oriented and opportunistic.
For example, already in the 1990s, the party stopped most of its ideological training of new members, and in the 2000s, the party started focusing on attracting right-wing and conservative voters rather than liberal and progressive voters. In 2014 and 2018, the party’s own analysis concluded that “the ordinary voter” was a right-wing oriented, middle-class house owner - despite the official presentation as a social-liberal party and “Sweden’s liberal party” for all individuals.
Under Sabuni, who recently left the party leadership and was replaced by Johan Pehrsson (known for being more of a right-winger than a liberal, especially when it comes to crime and punishment), the party has been favoring and promoting the cooperation with the EPP parties and thereby with the far-right by arguing that it is necessary in order to shape “a liberal right-wing government” and to achieve liberal politics and goals. Sabuni even once said that “Sweden Democrats are analyzing the problems with integration (of refugees and asylum seekers) in the same way as we”.
According to Heinoe, the Liberal Party is a problem for the Sweden Democrats because liberals and nationalists are “natural opponents”. At the same time, the support of the Liberal Party for a right-wing government formation is crucial for the Sweden Democrats to make influence decisions and governance.
As Heinoe puts it - a right-wing government can be created only if the Liberal Party stays in the parliament. Something that may not be the case is that the party is often polling under the 4% threshold.
While the future of the Liberal Party depends on support votes from right-wing voters because most of the liberal voters will vote for the Center Party that is not liberal from the beginning but, through politics, rhetoric, and actions, has developed into a new liberal party in the minds of many voters in Sweden.
The development of the Liberal Party is a “strange animal” because the party has decided to make elections with a promise of creating a right-wing government with support from the far-right party, while the case is that far-right parties in Europe are also anti-liberal parties. Heinoe writes that “governmental cooperation between liberals and nationalists is rare” and that “there are no successful examples to learn from”.
Instead, it is the case that conservative parties such as those in EPP are or have been cooperating with far-right populists. Heinoe also mentions the case of Denmark, where Venstre, officially presenting itself as Denmark’s Liberal party, has been cooperating with the far-right Danish People’s Party, but that Venstre is more of a moderate conservative party today.
Heino explains that liberal parties in Europe have chosen to be against nationalist parties for ideological reasons, both for the far-right and other nationalist parties. One reason is that the rise of the far-right populist and overall nationalism in Europe is the breakthrough and impact of liberal social, political, and economic reforms from 1980-to 2010, leading to more global openness, individualism, and pluralism. Thereby, as Heinoe explains it, there is an irony where in order for the far-right in Sweden to reach its goal of influencing government decision-making, the electoral results for the Liberal Party have to be good.
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