“I am not ashamed to say that I choose SD”

A wolf stroking around, tearing sheep and taking deer next to the children’s sandboxes.

Authorities standing idly by and watching.

Is this how it happens – when Sweden is torn apart?

FALUN. It’s late at night and cold and wet outside, but dogs need to rest in any weather.

The retired forest worker Östen Haglund walks along the village road with the gray dog ​​Turbo on a leash, but doesn’t make it more than fifty meters before the dog howls. He turns around. Expecting to see a hare, but staring into something else.

A wolf.

It’s the same animal that stalked Linghed for weeks, day and night, this spring-winter 2020. That strode between houses, crossed gardens and jumped over sandboxes. Who took sheep and deer and made mothers and fathers not dare to let their children out.

The animal follows them at close range. Östen has met wolves before and is not afraid of his own part, but wants to protect his dog. Turbo is terrified, barking incessantly.

The east stops and the wolf does the same. He continues walking and notices the animal following. Staying again with the same result.

Is it now time for the predator to attack?

We have traveled through Sweden’s longest village Lumsheden, seven kilometers of farms and pale red double garages, almost without seeing a soul.

Continued through forests with wavering cell phone coverage, over asphalt with slippery tire tracks.

Low mountains rise, beyond fields with horses and cows. Between two lakes it stretches out.

The village of Linghed.

The electoral district in Falu municipality where the Sweden Democrats have received the greatest support in the parliamentary elections. This is where we’re going.

After the wolf incident along the village road, Östen Haglund has had enough. He leaves a list of names at the small shop. After just one hour, the A4 paper is full.

For the first time in a long time, the County Administrative Board makes an exception, and grants protective hunting.

He leads the hunting team himself. On April 29, 2020, the animal is hit by a bullet. But the shot doesn’t kill.

Shot and bleeding, the bitch walks away.

The County Administrative Board’s lawyers interpret the hunting ordinance as meaning that it is not permitted to track down and shoot the animal. The applications for new protective hunting are rejected.

And soon the Linghedsvargen is back in the village, more fearless than ever.

In the election year 2022, both the Sweden Democrats and the Social Democrats will increase significantly in Falu municipality. But the support is anything but evenly distributed.

In Linghed, SD gets 35 percent, while S stays at 18. In the center, the result is the opposite.

The pattern repeats itself in municipality after municipality, region after region, in Sweden.

SD advances in the periphery. The Social Democrats are growing in the centre.

We have traveled here to understand something about what is happening in Sweden. If our country is about to split.

And if so, why.

On the village association’s website, you can read about the hunters and fishermen who first sought the Linghed region in the 14th century.

About the sawmill that was built in 1917. Small house factory in 1938.

The small Tempo store, where the name lists were filled, sells taco sauce, two for 25 kroner.

Turbo pulls on the leash. Photo: Magnus Wennman

After some hesitation, Östen Haglund, 73, receives us in the house he built for his family forty years ago, a stone’s throw from the farmhouse where he grew up.

The sky is closing in on us. Inside the house, the radio is on.

P4 Dalarna reports on a suspected double murder in the south of the country. Östen is scrolling through the phone, among the hunting team’s pictures of the gray wolves he believes have become the village’s great scourge.

For another eight months, the injured Linghedsvargen had time to roam around before the County Administrative Board reconsidered the decision, found that the law’s criteria were met and gave Östen Haglund’s hunting team permission to track it down and shoot it.

– I am also an animal lover, we should have a wolf, but not close to people. They have to go. It happens that they come in herds of seven or eight animals. And yet we haven’t had a license hunt here for many years. It has scared the elk away from the forests, made it so shy that it can hardly be hunted.

Östen Haglund is scrolling through the phone, among the pictures of the gray wolves he believes were never in the village before. Photo: Magnus Wennman

The East runs a hand through his messy hair. He grew up in a home where there was only one party, the Center. But in this election he has voted differently.

– I am not ashamed to say that I vote for SD. And I know many here think the same.

SD wants to see a maximum ceiling for how big the Swedish wolf tribe can be. Even the Christian Democrats talk about greatly reducing the tribe.

Östen runs a hand over the wooden table, pondering whether he really dares to believe in a change. The radio voice talks about the economic crisis, hyperinflation and price increases.

– … That’s a lot of whale pork. We’ll have to see…

There are 60,000 people living in Falun. Statistics Norway’s figures paint a picture of a municipality that, point by point, shadows the national average.

The average salary is SEK 29,200 a month before tax – compared to SEK 29,500 in the whole of Sweden.

The proportion of residents with a post-secondary education of at least three years is 31 percent – ​​compared to the country’s 30 percent.

The average villa costs 3.7 million – compared to 3.8 million.

So you can continue, through the statistics.

But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. They do not take into account the fissure that splits the municipality in half. Where the center stands against the periphery, women against men, highly educated against low educated.

A battle about what Falu municipality – and by extension Sweden – should be.

Zeth Isaksson, PhD student in sociology at Stockholm University, talks about a clear city-country conflict.

– It is certainly not new, but what we notice now is that SD is also increasing in rural municipalities where they were previously quite weak, while S is making a very good choice in the big cities.

The houses follow the ridge.

Each village passes into another village. There is water everywhere.

The center of the bend is a road crossing. There is Gulfmacken, which Lars Cedervall, 71, ran for 43 years.

The changes have been more than he can count. The workshop has long been closed. And he hadn’t thought that one day he would sell as many sausages as fuel.

But no shift is bigger than this. In 1979, petrol cost two kroner per litre. And today…

He casts a glance through the pub window, at the pump.

– … SEK 18.88.

Co-worker Gia Wallner, 35, testifies that customers talk about the expensive gasoline. And about the reduction obligation. How the whole fuel policy of the last two years has gone crazy.

– They sigh. Says it’s so outrageously expensive. But that they have no choice, she says.

What they themselves vote for?

– Blue, both answer.

One can travel through the statistics, but the landscape is populated by real people of flesh and blood, who can never be reduced to pieces in the puzzle of political scientists. Photo: Magnus Wennman

The sky opens, the rain pours down, but on this day, too, Turbo has to go out.

The blue oil coat slips on over the flannel shirt. Östen Haglund talks about everything else that upsets. Rising rubbish rates and closed village schools. And huge wind turbines, even if he himself is quite positive about them.

– In the city you can take the bus and the subway.

He draws in the damp September air. Watching the falling plums and glowing paradise apples, the lawn he says is covered in wolf tracks in winter.

Turbo sniffs the camera, pulls on the leash and wants to move on. The East scratches its chin, resists.

– It’s not so much about immigration. It has never been a problem here. It’s about everything else. The politicians have forgotten us.

Osten grew up in a home where there was only one party, the Center. But this election he has voted differently. Photo: Magnus Wennman

We continue through the village, past election posters that have not yet been taken down.

“A living countryside” (C)

“We’re listening to you!” (KD)

In his research, Zeth Isaksson has investigated how school closures and wind power projects affect polarisation.

– In the USA they talk about a “revenge of places that don’t matter”, but the development is ongoing in many countries. Even here in Sweden.

A timber truck thunders forward, with riches from what Ebba Bush named the Swedish heartland.

We enter a deserted pizzeria. The owner does not want to talk.

– I have too many problems and too few customers, he says.

The Jack Vegas machines bleep out into thin air.

One can travel through the statistics, but the landscape is populated by real people of flesh and blood, who can never be reduced to pieces in the puzzle of political scientists.

Autumn breaks through. The trees are changing, everything is changing.

A man walks along the country road, with his eyes on the sky. Will it ever crack open?

The mysterious election sign without sender at the entrance to Ica. Photo: Magnus Wennman

The residence city meets us with grid streets, joggers and cyclists with children in tow. Linghed’s opposite pole is called Slätta, an area with neatly planned townhouse architecture in the middle of Falun as taken from the TV series “Svensson, Svensson”.

Here the Social Democrats got 42 percent. SD finished below 10.

Ica has an extra price for organic chicken. At the parking lot there is a hand-painted election poster with no sender:

“How would your grandchildren want you to vote in 2022?”

On the one hand: the world is as it is. Voters see the problems in their society and cast their vote for whoever they think can solve them.

On the other hand: there are those who fear that the sense of togetherness and trust that once characterized Sweden is about to be lost.

In the Express writes Jonas Gardell about the sadness that we Swedes are drifting apart. On Instagram artist Timbuktu warns dark-skinned Swedes against hatred and violence.

How will we be able to live together in Falun? In Sweden?

The woman who will answer the question receives us in a renovated wooden house in a cultural quarter within walking distance of the work in the municipal hall. The eyes are a little tired. The four days that have passed since the election have been filled with long meetings and endless cups of coffee.

Liza Lundberg, 42, is the Social Democrats’ strong woman in Falun – and if the negotiations over the party line go as she hopes, she will take over from the bourgeois and become the next municipal councillor.

As a woman, an academic and a city dweller, she hardly has a profile that is close to the typical SD voter. Still, she believes they can be won back.

– It is true that people in rural areas vote much more conservatively now than before. But I still don’t fully buy it.

She pushes aside the dark bangs, rests her gaze on a poster image of Magdalena Andersson.

– It’s more about disappointment. You choose SD “to stir the pot”. I think we need to get much better at listening to people. To meet them much more and show that we care.

Did you meet the voters in Linghed?

– Not in this election campaign.

So how are you going to win them back?

– Elderly care and home care must work. The schools are good. We must give support to village associations and sports associations and highlight the power that exists.

Have the Linghed residents been forgotten?

– I don’t know how to express myself…

Liza Lundberg stops herself. A politician must be empathetic and comprehensible – at the same time that a single misstatement can sink a career.

– … quite obviously the feeling is like that. And that needs to be taken seriously. Otherwise it grows. And then it becomes very polarized. Everyone wants to feel hope and faith in the future. But there are no “quick fixes”. This will take time.

Photo: Magnus Wennman

And the wolves of Linghed, what do you want to do with them?

– People are rightly concerned. At the same time, we want a wolf tribe. It’s a very difficult trade-off, but I think that this must be possible to combine… that somehow there must be a way.

It’s time to break up. Outside the gate, SVT’s local news is waiting to ask questions about the negotiations.

We go out into the quiet street, look left and then right. An electric car rolls silently by.

The wolves are far away.