The Swedish Parliament now has something that has never been experienced before: a wild member of parliament with a Democratic background, writes our Nordic correspondent Pirjo Auvinen.
STOCKHOLM Swedish Radio published new party support figures on Wednesday, which are not flattering to the opposition.
Prime minister by Ulf Kristersson the leader of the right-wing bloc and the Democrats Magdalena Andersson the difference between the opposition group has narrowed and is only five percentage points in favor of the centre-green-left.
Among the individual parties, the support of both Kristersson’s coalition and the Sweden Democrats, which supports the government, has increased, while on the opposite side, the support of the Democrats, the left party and the center has decreased.
The first wild MP in Dem history
One of the reasons for the decline in the support of the Democrats is considered to be a member of parliament with a Palestinian background Jamal El-Hajta.
The events go back to last May and to a meeting organized in El-Haj’s hometown in Malmö. The party leadership urged all social democrats to stay away from the event, because the organizers’ front man was estimated to have connections with the terrorist organization Hamas.
Jamal El-Haj did not ignore the recommendation. However, the newspaper Expressen’s revelation led to his resignation from the parliamentary group. According to the newspaper, El-Haj had contacted the immigration office and, as a member of parliament, tried to influence the asylum application of the controversial Egyptian imam.
El-Haj was forced to resign from the party, but he refused to give up his seat as a representative. El-Haj is now the first wild member of parliament in history, who originally belonged to Sweden’s ruling party, the Social Democrats.
The party’s support dwindled surely because chairman Andersson defended El-Haj and his Palestinian family like a lion. At that time, Andersson still didn’t know about everything El-Haj was doing.
The greens have their lines messed up
Among the opposition parties, there is now also the environmental party in the greens. The party traditionally has two chairmen. In recent years they have been Märta Stenevi and Per Bolund. Bolund already announced in the fall that he will not continue in the party leadership. The same announcement came from Stenev at the beginning of the month.
Stenevi’s working methods have been criticized within the party. In addition, Bolund was elected as successor in November with a majority of one vote Daniel Helldén, which was not Stenev’s favorite. Stenevi sees the Greens as a universal party, while Helldén emphasizes environmental issues.
The end result, however, is that the Greens have only one chairman during the European elections, elected in November. The second one complained in April. One of the candidates is very proficient in Finnish Annika Hirvonen.