Irish Examiner view: A worrying political trend

Swedish and Italian elections

The leader of the Sweden Democrats Jimmie Åkesson delivers a speech at the party's election watch at Elite Hotel Marina Tower Tower in Nacka, near Stockholm, Sweden.

Although the final result of the Swedish general election on Sunday will not be determined until later this week, when votes from expatriates are tallied, the country’s far-right Sweden Democrat party appears to have made substantial gains in another worrying lurch towards extremist idealism in mainstream European politics.

With Italy heading to the polls in less than two weeks’ time and Georgia Meloni’s “post-fascist” Brothers of Italy party expected to dominate a conservative coalition, the result in Sweden which is predicting a 20% share of the vote for the Sweden Democrat party marks a seismic shift for a nation known for its liberalist political traditions.

Much as the Brothers of Italy has direct roots linking it to Mussolini’s fascist regime, the Sweden Democrat party emerged from Sweden’s neo-Nazi movement of the 1990s and still struggles to shake off accusations of extremism.

During the campaign, the party came under heavy fire for an anti-immigration stunt in which it painted a metro train in its colours and bearing the slogans “Repatriation Express” and “Next Stop Kabul”. In Italy, a far-right candidate for the League Party, was criticised when he filmed himself with a Roma woman on the streets of Florence, saying: “Vote for the League on September 25 and you won’t see her again.”

Race-baiting was long a tactic of autocrats, dictators, and those willing to stoke up racial hatred for their political ends. It is now being adopted across Europe as the best tool to achieve power and influence in societies widely divided on the issue. The Swedish election has revealed a country deeply ill at ease on immigration and the far-right has successful exploited that. It looks like that Italy will follow a similar path.