Sweden vows Lindh murder won’t stop euro vote

A SHOCKED Sweden pushed ahead with plans for a referendum on the euro yesterday despite the murder of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh by a mystery knifeman.

Mourners put candles and red roses by campaign posters featuring 46-year-old Ms Lindh, who was stabbed on Wednesday at a department store a few blocks from where Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated in 1986. She died early yesterday.

Ms Lindh received injuries to the chest, abdomen and arm in the attack, and was rushed to the Karolinska Hospital on the outskirts of Stockholm Doctors fought throughout the night to save her life, but she died at 5.29am.

As police, who never solved the Palme case, hunted for a lone killer, speculation grew about whether such a popular politician’s death would earn her pro-euro government a sympathy vote in Sunday’s poll on joining euroland.

Politicians called off rallies but said the vote must go ahead in homage to a woman hailed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a “great European”. She had been tipped as the next Swedish prime minister.

“It’s of the utmost necessity. We can’t let a violent madman rule our democratic process,” said the head of the anti-euro Green Party, Peter Eriksson. Prime Minister Goran Persson, trailing badly in the polls in a highly euro-sceptic country, announced a rally today “for democracy, against violence”.

Ms Lindh campaigned for Sweden to adopt the EU’s single currency in 2006. Polls show it is unpopular among Swedes wary of entrusting their prosperity to EU bureaucrats. But analysts said the government might reap a sympathy vote, with one saying the likelihood of a surprise Yes win rose “from 20% to 40%”. It was not clear if the attack was linked to the euro vote. Leaders at home and abroad offered warm tributes. Ms Lindh was a forceful voice on human rights who dubbed President Bush a lone ranger for the war in Iraq.

Married with two children, Ms Lindh became foreign minister in 1998 after a career in the Social Democratic Party which has ruled Sweden for six of the last seven decades.

Investigators said they had no suspects in their hunt. But they believe the assailant to be Swedish, to have acted alone and to still be in the country, head of Stockholm’s criminal police Leif Jennekvist, said. A nationwide alert has been issued for the suspect, with increased security at borders and airports. A neo-Nazi internet site announced Anna Lindh’s death by calling her a “traitor of the people”.