The conservative government of Ulf Kristersson has overseen a dramatic decline in shootings and gangland violence in Sweden, yet has warned that such gains could easily be lost as voters head to the polls on Sunday to determine the next government.
A report from the Financial Times revealed that under Kristersson, Sweden has seen an 80 per cent decline in the number of shootings since the conservative government came to power in 2022, when there were 391 shootings resulting in 62 deaths. In comparison, as of August 6th, there were only 48 shootings and 12 deaths recorded in the country this year. Meanwhile, the prime minister said that deadly gang violence has also been reduced by 75 per cent over the same time period.
While it was often downplayed in the legacy media at the time, the neoliberal paper acknowledged that it is “hard to exaggerate how bad the problem was in 2022,” noting that “scarcely a day went by without a shooting or bombing in the previously peaceful country.”
The FT went on to admit that the success of Kristersson’s government on gang crime “represents a rare example in Europe of mainstream parties — albeit aided by nationalists — prevailing on an issue that right-wing populists had invoked to rally support, with results that seemed barely conceivable at the start of the government’s term.”
The government has credited its success in confronting the largely foreign-run gangs that have ravaged the country to its introduction of stricter criminal penalties, increasing police funding, expanding the use of wiretapping, and reducing the age of criminal responsibility to 14 in a bid to undercut the ability of gangs to use teenagers as foot soldiers in their turf wars.
Kristersson’s government has also taken a hard-line approach to reducing immigration, including raising wage thresholds, strengthening rules for supposedly “highly qualified” immigrants, imposing stricter requirements for family-member immigration, and boosting funding to enable those who would self-deport from the country.
According to the Swedish Migration Agency, the country is expected to see just 4,200 asylum applications this year. This is a dramatic decline compared to 160,000 applications during the 2015 European Migrant Crisis, when Sweden became one of the top destinations for Middle Eastern and African inflows as a result of its open-borders ethos and generous welfare state.
“None of this would have been possible if we had backed down every time we were criticized for ‘going too far’ or moving too fast.’ Achieving new results requires entirely new approaches. That is what we have done, and now we are seeing the results,” Kristersson remarked on Monday.
“Now that almost four years have passed, much of the clean-up work has been done. But we are not finished until we have finally defeated the gangs and restored a sense of security to everyone in Sweden. On Sunday, it will be decided whether we get the chance to finish the job. We must hand over a safe and secure country to our children and grandchildren.”
Yet despite the demonstrable success of the conservative-led government, its re-election hopes are currently in doubt. A Norvus poll published this week found that the four main left-wing opposition parties are on pace to win 50.3 per cent of the vote on Sunday, compared to the conservative government coalition at 47.9 per cent.
However, there were some positive signs for Kristersson, with a poll last month showing the left-wing bloc with an apparently insurmountable 10-point lead. The Norvus poll this week also found that the government coalition partner, the Liberals, are now on pace to clear the four per cent threshold needed to win seats in the parliament, a result that would significantly increase the chances of the government maintaining power.
Member of the Riksdag for the Sweden Democrats, Mattias Karlsson, warned that the country may be experiencing its own form of the “Winston Churchill effect,” in which the war is perceived as over and, therefore, the public may vote the left back into power.
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