Ostracized from the political mainstream because of their roots in the neo-Nazi movement, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats are now the largest party among the right-wing opposition, holding a slim lead over the ruling left bloc with only one full preliminary result due on Wednesday. One word was on the lips of several Sweden Democrat MPs who spoke to the Financial Times at a wild party on Sunday night on the outskirts of Stockholm. “It’s revenge,” said Henrik Vinge, deputy captain. Linus Bylund, his chief of staff, added: “It’s revenge because the other parties treated us badly — even the three [rightwing] party on our side. But time passes and time heals.” Should the right-wing bloc win, the Sweden Democrats are set to gain national influence for the first time in the country, leaving only Germany, France and Belgium with a so-called sanitarium around their far-right parties. The current gap to the ruling left-wing coalition is just 47,000 votes, equivalent to the average size of a constituency seat. Since bringing the Sweden Democrats in from the cold over the past two years, allying with them on issues such as crime and immigration, the ruling center-right bloc has said it would not want the nationalists in government, but simply as a support party in parliament. But the Sweden Democrats are likely to make even greater demands now that they appear to have won more votes than Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s moderates who are likely to become the second largest party. About 95 percent of the votes have already been counted, with the center-left Social Democrats continuing to hold first place in every election since 1917. “We would like to go into government,” said Richard Jomshof, party secretary. “There is a lot of pressure from our voters. I’m not sure they would settle for being out of government.” He even suggested the party could run for prime minister, something the three centre-right parties in a potential coalition are unlikely to agree to. The Sweden Democrats are based in southern Sweden, the entry point for most immigrants and notorious for the deadly shootings in the city of Malmö. This also means that the party is well aware of the fate of its sister group just across the Øresund strait. The Danish People’s Party shocked the establishment in Copenhagen in 2015 by becoming the largest right-wing group, but refused to enter government. It has since been completely wiped out in the Danish polls as voters appear to have punished the party for refusing to take office, while the centre-left has stolen many of its policies. “The biggest mistake of the Danish People’s Party was that they never dared to participate actively in the government. We want to do that. I’m not here for the Sweden Democrats. I want to make a difference in Sweden,” said Jomshof. The Sweden Democrats caused a stir when they first entered parliament in 2010. Political stability has been increasingly elusive since then, with mainstream parties trying to deny them influence. Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was forced to govern twice with a right-wing coalition, resigning after just seven hours in office late last year and saved only by a Swedish-Kurdish MP who later nearly derailed the country’s bid to join the NATO. Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democrats Magdalena Andersson delivers a speech at the party’s election rally on Sunday © Jonas Ekströmer/TT News Agency/AP Kristersson, whose party of moderates has lost ground despite promises to tackle crime and immigration, tried to present himself as a possible prime minister, saying he would try to unite the nation as it moved closer to joining Nato and taking over the EU presidency on January 1st. But he faces a real struggle to form a viable coalition if the results are confirmed. A one-seat majority will test his ability to reconcile the Liberals and Sweden Democrats. Anders Borg, a former moderate finance minister, said he believed there would be a right-wing government. “On critical issues like immigration, fiscal policy, energy and investment, I don’t think the differences will be that huge,” he said. Borg, whose wife is of Jewish descent, played down fears about the Sweden Democrats’ roots, saying it was now a “centre-right party”, adding: “I don’t think people are that worried. Sweden will be the same.” The Sweden Democrats will join other anti-immigration parties in the Nordic region to gain influence, after the Progress party entered government in Norway and True Finns in Finland. But neither had its origins in a movement like ‘Keep Sweden Swedish’. The nationalists say they are ready for power, pointing to their experience in Sölvesborg, a small southern town where a party member was mayor and where they increased their share of the vote on Sunday by 10 percentage points. They also see themselves reaping the benefits of having consistently warned that Sweden’s immigration policies — from the most generous in Europe to a crackdown on arrivals since 2015 — would lead to a rise in crime. “Consistency helps. This is a business of trust. As long as we are conservative our voters count on us to be stable. We are the party that has changed the least in the last 20 years,” Bylund said. As the loud techno beats from their party faded on Sunday, euphoria remained for the Sweden Democrats, on the brink of national influence for the first time. Jomshof said: “This is an incredible milestone. For the first time, we are a legitimate partner in a new government. We are no longer alone.”
