The rise of the Swedish far-right

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published 26 October 2022

The Swedish Parliament elected a new prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, who is backed by the far-right party the Sweden Democrats. What does this mean for the country? Here's everything you need to know:

Who is Ulf Kristersson?

Sweden elected 58-year-old Ulf Kristersson, the center-right leader of the Moderate Party, to be prime minister with a slim margin of 176 votes to 173. He defeated sitting Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, who leads the center-left party, the Social Democrats, which is still currently the largest single party in the country after it received 30.3 percent of the votes in elections back in September, reports CNBC. Kristersson's victory came from a coalition formed by his own party and two other center-right parties, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals, as well as a boost from the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD), who had a record-high election result, receiving 20.5 percent of the votes. While Kristersson himself is not a member of the far right, he garnered far-right support after making government plans that included many of the same promises made by the Sweden Democrats during the general election, Politico reports.

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Kristersson had originally run for election in 2018, but could not overcome the Social Democrat lead. At the time, he said that he would not negotiate with the SD, as they were considered political outcasts, The Local reports. However, in 2019, Kristersson began cooperating with the far-right party and encouraged his own party to follow suit, leading to critics accusing him of "selling out," The Local continues. Ultimately, the four right-leaning parties won the 2022 election, essentially ending a political era in Sweden that the Social Democrats had long dominated.

In order to garner the support needed to be elected, Kristersson created a 62-page pact detailing cooperation in seven key policy areas, focusing heavily on immigration and criminal justice, The New York Times reports. The pact includes a number of SD's policy priorities, including restricting immigration, doubling sentences for gang crimes, expanding police powers in certain areas, and checking people for weapons even without probable cause. It also calls for committees to be created that include members of the party that will help create new government policies, the Times continues. Sverker Gustavsson, a political scientist at Uppsala University, explained that the pact "gives [SD] a lot of informal power."

Sweden's new government takes a particularly strong stance on immigration, marking a momentous shift from the tolerance and diversity that Sweden has long been associated with, Reuters reports. Although there doesn't seem to be a single obvious reason for Sweden's shift away from this ideology, experts seem to believe that the rise of gang violence, much of which has occurred in immigrant communities, has created an unwelcome association, the Times writes.

He also entirely scrapped the nation's Ministry of Environment in what critics say is a huge blow to the country's climate targets, Bloomberg reports. The change will have 26-year-old Climate Minister Romina Pourmokhtari, the youngest cabinet minister in Swedish history, report to Deputy Prime Minister and Energy Minister Ebba Busch. Since the 1980s, Sweden had had a separate, independent ministry dedicated to environmental issues, something that was largely seen as progressive in the climate space, Bloomberg continues. The SD is the only political party in the country not to support the target of having net zero emissions by 2045.

Making such a drastic move so early into leadership leaves a lot of questions about how Sweden will change. In a speech after his election, Kristersson said that "now begins the biggest offensive in Swedish history against organized crime" and that "immigration to Sweden has been unsustainable," The Associated Press reports. Given his words and actions, the influence of the Swedish Democrats is palpable.

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Devika Rao has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022, covering science, the environment, climate and business. She previously worked as a policy associate for a nonprofit organization advocating for environmental action from a business perspective.