Alternative for Sweden

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Alternative for Sweden
Alternativ för Sverige
AbbreviationAfS
LeaderGustav Kasselstrand
Deputy leaderMikael Jansson
Party secretaryYvonne Lindholm
FoundedMarch 5, 2018; 3 years ago (2018-03-05)
Split fromSweden Democrats
HeadquartersStockholm, Sweden
Membership (2021)Increase 2,300[1]
Ideology
Political positionFar-right[12][13][7][14][15][16][10]
Colours
  •   Dark blue
  •   Yellow
Riksdag
0 / 349
European Parliament
0 / 21
County councils[17]
1 / 1,597
Municipal councils[18]
2 / 12,780
Website
alternativforsverige.se

Alternative for Sweden (Swedish: Alternativ för Sverige, AfS) is a right-wing populist political party in Sweden.[19] It was founded in March 2018. The party was founded by Gustav Kasselstrand and William Hahne.

Alternative for Sweden was founded by members of the Sweden Democrat Youth, who were collectively expelled from the Sweden Democrats in 2015.[20] As its primary questions, it advocates forced repatriation of one million immigrants and Swedish withdrawal from the European Union.[21][22]

AfS ran in the Swedish general election in 2018, but failed to enter the Riksdag. With 0.31% of the vote, AfS is the second largest party without representation in the Riksdag.[23] In the 2019 European Parliament election in Sweden the party ran on an anti-EU platform, receiving 0.49% of the vote. In November 2020 AfS announced their intention to run in the 2021 election to the Church of Sweden council.[24] They won 1.24% of the votes giving them 3 seats in the Church council.[25]

History[]

Background[]

In early April 2015, the Sweden Democrats (SD) accused its youth league, the Sweden Democrat Youth (SDU), of having relations with the Far-right and Ethnonationalist organization Nordic Youth (Swedish: Nordisk Ungdom).[26] 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 27 April 2015. 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 SD chairmanship in Stockholm.[27]

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.

Founding and defections[]

In early 2017, Sveriges Radio reported that SDU members had filed a party registration application to the election authority.[28] 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. At the time of the launch, the party was described as drawing inspiration from Alternative for Germany, the Freedom Party of Austria and the French National Rally.[29]

Two Sweden Democrat members of the Riksdag, Olle Felten and Jeff Ahl, defected to the party later that month.[30] 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.[31] Mikael Jansson, former leader of the Sweden Democrats, also defected on April 9, citing the mother party's recent lack of resistance to NATO as his main reason.[citation needed]

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, with leader Gustav Kasselstrand asking people on Twitter to prepare for "Sweden's biggest political earthquake in modern times". However, the party failed to enter parliament by a large margin, receiving just 0.31 out of the 4.0 percent needed to get past the election threshold. On election night, the party was reported to have been kicked out of the Persian restaurant it had rented to celebrate the election results.[32] According to high-level officials at Facebook, AfS social media interactions were reviewed just before the 2018 election. Accused of using bots to manipulate the algorithm and inflate the party's perceived popularity, actions were taken by Facebook to limit certain activities of AfS accounts just before the election.[33] It did not participate in the municipal elections.[34]

Since 2018[]

After the 2018 election, the party participated in the 2019 election for the European Parliament, but failed to gain a seat.

In March 2020, the party's deputy chairman and founding member William Hahne resigned from his position, after he had been revealed by Expressen to run a webshop selling surgical masks for a price 759% higher than other commercial sellers of surgical masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.[35]

Ideology and policies[]

On its website, Alternative for Sweden lists three key issues:[36]

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

It is critical of the current political establishment which it accuses of being naive and overly politically correct. Alternative for Sweden accuses "the Left" of hijacking societal institutions to rewrite history.[37]

Unlike the Sweden Democrats, Alternative for Sweden is non-interventionist and displays hard Euroscepticism which it considers the European Union a threat to Sweden's independence and seek to call for the country to leave the EU. It also 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.[36]

AfS has been described as right-wing, far-right and right-wing populist by Svenska Dagbladet,[12][13][5] while Dagens Nyheter has described the party as nationalist and right-wing populist.[38][4] Bloomberg News has described the party as social conservative and far-right.[7] The ideology of the party has also been described as close to the identitarian[39] and alt-right movements.[40][41] During the 2019 European Parliament election party leader Kasselstrand was endorsed by the far-right European party Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APF) on Facebook.[42]

Notable members[]

Elections[]

Riksdag[]

Year Votes % Rank Seats +/- Notes
2018[23] 20,290 0.31 #10
0 / 349
 New Extra-parliamentary

European Parliament[]

Year Votes % Rank Seats +/- Notes
2019[43] 19,178 0.46 #10
0 / 20
 New Extra-parliamentary

Church of Sweden Council[]

Year Votes % Seats +/- Notes
2021[25] 10,358 1.24 (#12)
3 / 251
 New Opposition

References[]

  1. ^ "NYTT MEDLEMSREKORD – REDAN I SEPTEMBER". alternativforsverige.se (in Swedish). Alternative for Sweden. September 7, 2021. Archived from the original on October 21, 2021. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
  2. ^ https://www.fhs.se/download/18.aa44b1740d51053bc784/1599031490867/Fr%C3%A5n%20Nordiska%20motst%C3%A5ndsr%C3%B6relsen%20till%20alternativh%C3%B6gern%20-%20en%20studie%20om%20den%20svenska%20radikalnationalistiska%20milj%C3%B6n.pdf
  3. ^ https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1282945/FULLTEXT01.pdf
  4. ^ a b "Riksdagsledamot utesluts ur SD för "samröre med rasister"". Dagens Nyheter. March 15, 2018. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  5. ^ a b "Avhoppen till Alternativ för Sverige". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  6. ^ "Politisk vilde går till högerpopulistiskt parti – Helagotland".
  7. ^ a b c "Far-right defections seen making Sweden's nationalists palatable". Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. April 9, 2018.
  8. ^ https://alternativforsverige.se/alternativ-f%C3%B6r-sverige-synligg%C3%B6r-eu-avgiften-genom-kostnadstickare/
  9. ^ https://utur.eu/
  10. ^ a b Merrill, Samuel (April 14, 2020). "Sweden then vs. Sweden now: The memetic normalisation of far-right nostalgia". First Monday. doi:10.5210/fm.v25i6.10552. S2CID 225880285.
  11. ^ "AFS: "Islam hör inte hemma i Sverige!"".
  12. ^ a b "Nya högerpartier utmanar – "blir en historisk kväll"". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). February 28, 2018. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  13. ^ a b "Inget alternativ för SD – när riktigt inflytande är målet". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). March 18, 2018. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  14. ^ Gianluca Mezzofiore and Rory Smith (August 30, 2018). "Sweden: Twitter bots have doubled ahead of elections". CNN.
  15. ^ "TV4-profilen Lennart Matikainen kandiderar för Alternativ för Sverige". nyheter24.se (in Swedish). Nyheter24. April 9, 2018.
  16. ^ "Steve Bannon reveals plans to visit Sweden to "learn from" the nation's far-right party". mediamatters.org. Media Matters. April 2, 2018. Archived from the original on July 26, 2019.
  17. ^ "Politisk vilde går till högerpopulistiskt parti – Helagotland". helagotland.se (in Swedish). Gotland, Sweden. Archived from the original on September 9, 2021. Retrieved September 9, 2021.
  18. ^ Vergara, Daniel (June 18, 2021). "AFS närvaro i Växjöpolitiken skapar oro". expo.se (in Swedish). EXPO. Archived from the original on September 19, 2021. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
  19. ^ "Kasselstrand: SD slits isär av destruktiva strider".
  20. ^ "Kasselstrand vill in i riksdagen" (in Swedish). December 18, 2017. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
  21. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "# 35 Rekord i utdelade medborgarskap – därför behövs återvandring!". YouTube.
  22. ^ https://www.facebook.com/altforsverige/posts/1461284274263833
  23. ^ a b "Röster – Val 2018" [Votes – 2018 election]. data.val.se (in Swedish). Retrieved September 15, 2018.
  24. ^ "Starka reaktioner på att Alternativ för Sverige ställer upp i kyrkovalet".
  25. ^ a b "Val till Kyrkomöte - valresultat".
  26. ^ Nilsson, Martin (April 27, 2015). "Kasselstrand och Hahne utesluts ur Sverigedemokraterna - Nyheter (Ekot)". Sveriges Radio.
  27. ^ Kärman, Jens; Larsson, Mats J. (April 28, 2015). "SDU-topparna ger inte upp – nu går de vidare". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). pp. 8–9.
  28. ^ Radio, Sveriges (February 11, 2017). "Uteslutna sverigedemokrater bildar nytt parti – Nyheter (Ekot)". Sveriges Radio.
  29. ^ Kasselstrands nya parti ska ta väljare från SD (in Swedish)
  30. ^ "Riksdagsledamot lämnar SD – blir politisk vilde". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). March 27, 2018. Retrieved March 27, 2018.
  31. ^ Så arbetar ledamöterna (in Swedish)
  32. ^ Omni, Ines Micanovic / (September 10, 2018). "AFS angrepp på persisk restaurang möttes av hån". Svenska Dagbladet – via www.svd.se.
  33. ^ "Facebook ingrep vid svenska valet – misstänkte fusk". DN.SE (in Swedish). November 5, 2021. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
  34. ^ "AFS beställde tio miljoner valsedlar". www.expressen.se.
  35. ^ "William Hahne lämnar – efter hårda kritiken". www.expressen.se.
  36. ^ a b Vår politik (political platform; in Swedish)
  37. ^ https://alternativforsverige.se/om-oss/ (about us page; in Swedish)
  38. ^ "Tidigare partiledare lämnar SD – värvas av Alternativ för Sverige". Dagens Nyheter. April 9, 2018. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  39. ^ "Die Situation in Schweden". May 26, 2018.
  40. ^ https://frivarld.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/AfS-f%C3%A4rdig.pdf
  41. ^ Stern, Alexandra Minna: Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right Is Warping the American Imagination, page 7
  42. ^ "Alliance for Peace and Freedom". en-gb.facebook.com.
  43. ^ "Val till Europaparlamentet – Röster" [Votes – 2019 election]. data.val.se (in Swedish). Retrieved June 15, 2019.

External links[]

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