{"id":542,"date":"2006-09-19T23:13:44","date_gmt":"2006-09-20T06:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefangeens.com\/?p=542"},"modified":"2006-09-19T23:13:44","modified_gmt":"2006-09-20T06:13:44","slug":"sverigedemokraterna-the-other-shoe-drops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/2006\/09\/sverigedemokraterna-the-other-shoe-drops\/","title":{"rendered":"Sverigedemokraterna: The other shoe drops"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preliminary national election results for Sweden’s xenophobic Sverigedemokraterna are in… and they’re up to 2.79% of the vote according to SvD<\/a> — way above the exit poll’s 1.9% forecast, and around double their showing in 2002.<\/p>\n

We can thus conclude that 1 in 3 Sverigedemokraterna are ashamed of their vote:-) But this figure could rise — the counting of outsider parties in the Sk\u00e5ne region (in the south) is still ongoing, and that’s where the Sverigedemokraterna are strongest. It’s still possible, for example, that when the counting’s done, the party exceeds the 4% threshold to gain representation in parliament.<\/p>\n

One milestone has definitely been reached: By passing the 2.5% mark in the national results, the Sverigedemokraterna are now eligible for state support as a party.<\/p>\n

What’s in store for Sweden? First, it will try the Belgian option, the cordon sanitaire<\/em> (quarantine), as reported by The Local<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The party has also been successful in local elections, particularly in Sk\u00e5ne, in the south of the country. In the Sk\u00e5ne town of Landskrona<\/a>, the Sweden Democrats have won over 22 percent of the votes counted so far. The Social Democrats in the town have said to Moderate and Liberal representatives that they are willing to discuss a grand coalition to keep out the Sweden Democrats.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That won’t make them go away — quite the opposite. Then, my guess is that attempts will be made to declare the Sverigedemokraterna an illegitimate party on the grounds that they are racist, so that they do not get access to tax-funded state support. This won’t stall their momentum either, for exactly the same reasons why it hasn’t worked in Belgium<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Add to this indications that young first-time voters voted disproportionally for the Sverigedemokraterna, and you have yourself the makings of a very different political landscape in Sweden. The solution? Learn from Belgium’s mistakes. Engage the Sverigedemokraterna now<\/em> on the merits of their arguments — and yes, this means discussing immigration and integration, two topics that both the left and right ignored during the campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preliminary national election results for Sweden’s xenophobic Sverigedemokraterna are in… and they’re up to 2.79% of the vote according to SvD — way above the exit poll’s 1.9% forecast, and around double their showing in 2002. We can thus conclude … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7eNhC-8K","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}