Sweden far right party reaches record result, won’t form coalition

Sweden’s anti-immigrant party, the Sweden Democrats,
earned a record-high result of 17.6% in parliamentary elections held on Sept.
9, giving it the third-largest faction and the most gains in seats. The ruling
Social Democrats retained their first-place position but suffered their worst
result since 1908 at 28.4%, dailymail.co.uk reported. The five qualifying
parties said they would not form a coalition with the Sweden Democrats.

Zenon Zawada: The Sweden
Democrats’ results fall below what some pundits had expected (predicting as
high as 30%), disqualifying them from participating in the government. Yet
their strong result nonetheless confirms that the populist-nationalist tide
remains strong in Europe. The Russian government is well aware of this, which
is why it has refused to abide by the Minsk Accords.

In our view, the Kremlin has to decide whether it
has the ability to withstand mounting Western sanctions until 2021, when the
next German Bundestag elections are held and the AfD’s support is likely to
have swelled further. Then the French parliamentary elections are scheduled for
2022. Even with the momentum for nationalists, it’s unclear whether they’ll
have enough support to form a government, which the Kremlin will have to take
into account. So far, the Kremlin is betting on its ability to resist
sanctions.