Alternative for Sweden

Alternative for Sweden
Alternativ för Sverige
Abbreviation AfS
Leader Gustav Kasselstrand
Founded 13 December 2017 (2017-12-13) (registered)
5 March 2018 (2018-03-05) (launched)
Split from Sweden Democrats
Ideology Swedish nationalism[1]
Right-wing populism[2][3]
Social conservatism[4]
Hard Euroscepticism
Anti-immigration
Non-interventionism
Political position Far-right[5][6][4][7]
Riksdag
0 / 349
European Parliament
0 / 20
County councils
0 / 1,597
Municipal councils
0 / 12,780
Website
alternativforsverige.se

Alternative for Sweden (Swedish: Alternativ för Sverige) is a political party in Sweden. The party was founded in 2017 by members of the Sweden Democrat Youth, who were collectively expelled from the Sweden Democrats in 2015.[8] It advocates repatriation of immigrants, non-interventionism, Swedish withdrawal from the European Union, a flat tax system, opposition to NATO, and improved animal rights, among other things. It is led by Gustav Kasselstrand and, according to him, draws inspiration from Alternative for Germany, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the French National Rally.[9] AfS ran in the Swedish general election in 2018, but failed to enter the Parliament, as it received 0.31% of the votes.

History

In early April 2015, the Sweden Democrats (SD) accused its youth league, the Sweden Democrat Youth (SDU), of having relations with the white power organization Nordic Youth (Swedish: Nordisk Ungdom).[10] In response to these alleged relations, SD threatened to expel several leading members of SDU. SDU's leader Gustav Kasselstrand, and its deputy leader William Hahne, were eventually expelled from the party on April 27. They both denied the accusations of relations with extremist groups, and claimed that SD's parliamentary group leader Mattias Karlsson wanted to get rid of them after Hahne defeated the leadership's preferred candidate for the SDU chairmanship in Stockholm.[11]

Following the initial expulsion of the youth wing's chairman and deputy chairman, the mother party launched its own leadership candidate to compete against Jessica Ohlson, who was considered an ally of Kasselstrand and Hahne, and warned that the party would break all ties with SDU if Ohlson were to be elected chairman. On September 12, 2015, Ohlson defeated the party's preferred candidate for the SDU chairmanship, and the party shut down SDU's website and broke all relations with its youth wing. It then established a new youth organization, Ungsvenskarna (Young Swedes) and announced that every SD member who remained a member of SDU would be expelled. Ohlson herself was officially expelled alongside five other SDU members on October 25, but continued to serve as chairman of SDU, which went on to become an independent organization.

In early 2017, Sveriges Radio reported that SDU members had filed a party registration application to the election authority.[12] The party was eventually registered on December 13, 2017, with Kasselstrand, Hahne and Ohlson in central positions. It was then officially launched on March 5, 2018; at the same time, it announced that it would participate in the 2018 elections.

Two Sweden Democrat members of the Riksdag, Olle Felten and Jeff Ahl, defected to the party later that month.[13] According to the rules of the Riksdag, Felten and Ahl are considered independent MP's, meaning that Alternative for Sweden is not officially represented in the parliament.[14] Former SD leader (1995-2005) Mikael Jansson also defected on April 9, citing the mother party's recent lack of resistance to NATO as his main reason.

Before the 2018 elections the party was one of the largest in terms of social media interactions and expected to enter the parliament after the elections, but failed to do so by a large margin, receiving just 0,31 out of the 4,0 percent needed to get past the election threshold. It did not participate in the municipal elections.[15]

Ideology and policies

On its website, Alternative for Sweden lists three key issues:[16]

  1. Repatriation of immigrants
  2. Democracy and politicians
  3. Law and order

AfS is non-interventionist and displays hard Euroscepticism; it considers the EU a threat to Sweden’s independence. It seeks to rearm the military and form a Nordic defense alliance, instead of making Sweden dependent on NATO. It wishes to restrict welfare benefits to Swedish citizens, shift from progressive to flat income tax, replace the differentiated VAT rates with a fixed rate, re-nationalise all schools, and combat the idea of a cashless society. AfS also wishes to make the country self-sufficient and end the use of fossil fuels, citing both environmental protection and national security reasons.[16] The party draws inspiration from the election campaign and rhetoric of U.S. President Donald Trump, and often talks about the importance of "draining the political swamp", and cleaning up the Swedish bureaucracy.

AfS has been described as both right-wing, far-right and right-wing populist by Svenska Dagbladet,[5][6][3] while Dagens Nyheter has described the party as nationalist and right-wing populist.[1][2] Bloomberg News has described the party as social conservative and far-right.[4] The ideology of the party has also been described as close to the identitarian movement.[17]

Electoral results

Riksdag

Year Votes % Rank Seats +/- Notes
2018[18] 20,290 0.31 #10
0 / 349
 New Extra-parliamentary

References

  1. 1 2 "Tidigare partiledare lämnar SD – värvas av Alternativ för Sverige". Dagens Nyheter. 2018-04-09. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  2. 1 2 "Riksdagsledamot utesluts ur SD för "samröre med rasister"". Dagens Nyheter. 2018-03-15. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  3. 1 2 "Avhoppen till Alternativ för Sverige". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  4. 1 2 3 "Far-right defections seen making Sweden's nationalists palatable". www.bloomberg.com.
  5. 1 2 "Nya högerpartier utmanar – "blir en historisk kväll"". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 2018-02-28. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  6. 1 2 "Inget alternativ för SD – när riktigt inflytande är målet". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 2018-03-18. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  7. ↑ CNN, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Rory Smith,. "Sweden: Twitter bots have doubled ahead of elections".
  8. ↑ "Kasselstrand vill in i riksdagen" (in Swedish). 2017-12-18. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
  9. ↑ Kasselstrands nya parti ska ta väljare från SD (in Swedish)
  10. ↑ "Med skräcken som vapen".
  11. ↑ Kärman, Jens; Larsson, Mats J. (2015-04-28). "SDU-topparna ger inte upp - nu går de vidare". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). pp. 8–9.
  12. ↑ Radio, Sveriges. "Uteslutna sverigedemokrater bildar nytt parti - Nyheter (Ekot)". sverigesradio.se.
  13. ↑ "Riksdagsledamot lämnar SD – blir politisk vilde". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). 2018-03-27. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
  14. ↑ Så arbetar ledamöterna (in Swedish)
  15. ↑ https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/val-2018/afs-bestallde-tio-miljoner-valsedlar/
  16. 1 2 Vår politik (political platform; in Swedish)
  17. ↑ "Die Situation in Schweden". 26 May 2018.
  18. ↑ "Röster - Val 2018" [Votes - 2018 election]. data.val.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-09-15.
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