Alternative for Sweden

Alternative for Sweden (Swedish: Alternativ för Sverige, AfS) is a Swedish nationalist,[2] right-wing populist[4][5] political party in Sweden.

Alternative for Sweden

Alternativ för Sverige
AbbreviationAfS
Party chairmanGustav Kasselstrand
Party secretaryYvonne Lindholm
Founded5 March 2018 (2018-03-05)
Stockholm, Sweden
Split fromSweden Democrats
HeadquartersStockholm, Sweden
Membership (2020) 2,204[1]
IdeologySwedish nationalism[2][3]
Right-wing populism[4][5]
Social conservatism[6]
Hard euroscepticism
Political positionRight-wing to far-right[7][8][6][9]
Colours    Dark blue, yellow
Riksdag
0 / 349
European Parliament
0 / 21
County councils
0 / 1,597
Municipal councils
0 / 12,780
Website
alternativforsverige.se

The party was founded in 2017 by members of the Sweden Democrat Youth, who were collectively expelled from the Sweden Democrats in 2015.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]

History

Background

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).[13] 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.[14]

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.[15] 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.[16] 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.[17] 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.

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 in order to celebrate the election results.[18] It did not participate in the municipal elections.[19]

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 the regular one during the COVID-19 pandemic.[20]

Ideology and policies

On its website, Alternative for Sweden lists three key issues:[21]

  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. AfS accuses "the Left" of hijacking societal institutions in order to rewrite history.[22]

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.[21]

AfS has been described as right-wing, far-right and right-wing populist by Svenska Dagbladet,[7][8][5] while Dagens Nyheter has described the party as nationalist and right-wing populist.[3][4] Bloomberg News has described the party as social conservative and far-right.[6] The ideology of the party has also been described as close to the identitarian[23] and alt-right movements.[24][25]

Electoral results

Riksdag
Year Votes % Rank Seats +/- Notes
2018[12] 20,290 0.31 #10
0 / 349
 New Extra-parliamentary

European Parliament
Year Votes % Seats +/- Notes
2019[26] 19,178 0.46
0 / 20
 New Extra-parliamentary

References
  1. ""Medlemsrekord i Alternativ för Sverige 2020 – Hjälp partiet att växa ännu mer 2021!"" (in Swedish). Retrieved 2021-01-07.
  2. Sverige, Alternativ för (June 1, 2019). "Alternativ för Sverige går starkt framåt i EU-valet – ökar över hela landet". Alternativ för Sverige.
  3. "Tidigare partiledare lämnar SD – värvas av Alternativ för Sverige". Dagens Nyheter. 2018-04-09. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  4. "Riksdagsledamot utesluts ur SD för "samröre med rasister"". Dagens Nyheter. 2018-03-15. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  5. "Avhoppen till Alternativ för Sverige". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  6. "Far-right defections seen making Sweden's nationalists palatable". Bloomberg. 9 April 2018.
  7. "Nya högerpartier utmanar – "blir en historisk kväll"". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 2018-02-28. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  8. "Inget alternativ för SD – när riktigt inflytande är målet". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 2018-03-18. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  9. Gianluca Mezzofiore and Rory Smith. "Sweden: Twitter bots have doubled ahead of elections". CNN.
  10. "Kasselstrand vill in i riksdagen" (in Swedish). 2017-12-18. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
  11. Kasselstrands nya parti ska ta väljare från SD (in Swedish)
  12. "Röster - Val 2018" [Votes - 2018 election]. data.val.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-09-15.
  13. "Med skräcken som vapen".
  14. Kärman, Jens; Larsson, Mats J. (2015-04-28). "SDU-topparna ger inte upp – nu går de vidare". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). pp. 8–9.
  15. Radio, Sveriges. "Uteslutna sverigedemokrater bildar nytt parti – Nyheter (Ekot)". sverigesradio.se.
  16. "Riksdagsledamot lämnar SD – blir politisk vilde". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). 2018-03-27. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
  17. Så arbetar ledamöterna (in Swedish)
  18. Omni, Ines Micanovic / (September 10, 2018). "AFS angrepp på persisk restaurang möttes av hån" – via www.svd.se.
  19. "AFS beställde tio miljoner valsedlar". www.expressen.se.
  20. "William Hahne lämnar – efter hårda kritiken". www.expressen.se.
  21. Vår politik (political platform; in Swedish)
  22. https://alternativforsverige.se/om-oss/ (about us page; in Swedish)
  23. "Die Situation in Schweden". 26 May 2018.
  24. https://frivarld.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/AfS-f%C3%A4rdig.pdf
  25. Stern, Alexandra Minna: Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right Is Warping the American Imagination, page 7
  26. "Val till Europaparlamentet - Röster" [Votes - 2019 election]. data.val.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2019-06-15.
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