“They adopted the [Sweden Democrats’] agenda because they were afraid of losing voters,” said Ulf Bjereld, a professor at Gothenburg University and an active member of the Social Democrats. Meanwhile, the far-right Sweden Democrats won 17.6 percent of the vote in its best ever result. An exit poll showed that almost a fifth of the far-right voters cast their ballots for the Social Democrats the last election. As for Sweden Democrats’ warning of the “Islamization” of Sweden, the average Swede vastly overestimates the percentage of the population that is Muslim. “A strategy that was tried to win back voters from the Sweden Democrats meant that the Social Democrats fell even more,” said Bjereld.

Source: Huffington Post September 10, 2018 14:37 UTC