The Swedish Greens (Miljöpartiet de gröna) achieved the greatest result in their electoral history in the parliamentary elections on Sunday 19th September. The Greens gathered 7.2 % of votes (2006: 5.2 %) which now makes them the third biggest party in Sweden.
At the same time the red-green coalition suffered a narrow defeat to the currently governing centre-right alliance. The most worrying part, however, is the success of the anti-immigration and nationalist Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) who managed to obtain their first places in parliament. This is a continuation of the European wide phenomenon of far right uprising during the last decade.
The Greens have already refused the call of prime minister Fredrik Reindfelt to join the government negotiations with the centre-right alliance not wanting to let down their voters. If the Social Democratic party (Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti) and the Left party (Vänsterpartiet) also decide to stay put, which is likely, this means that the Sweden Democrats are now holding the balance of power in the hung parliament with their share of 5.7 % of the vote.
The political dead end will be solved one way or the other but there seems to be no easy way out from the Green perspective. Either the Greens would have to leave the red-green coalition that they campaigned for or give the floor to the Sweden Democrats.
Whatever the outcome is, one can only hope that the rising popularity of the Greens will derail the far right’s bandwagon in the political upheavals of the coming years in Sweden and the rest of Europe.
by Erkki Perälä, FYEG EC member.
Hi,
Georg
I don’t like this “either or”. If you play it like this, the right will always win because either you include them or you force the left/greens to betray their own ideals.
So I can only reinforce what a Swedish Newspaper was saying: Say no, Maria!
(Further, the Greens will never derail any right wing movement, because it tries to get a completely different constituency, right? On the contrary, if the intellectual green party (esp. the Swedish! very smart people there!) gains popularity, I see the danger of a surge to the anti-elitist movement as well.)
PS: The Greens were up in the polls at around 9% the month leading up the election. There were already talks underway, who becomes a minister. So apart from political rhetoric, there is reason for disappointment as well!