Immigrants Express Relief After Sweden Democrats Suffer Election Setback

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After a ​nail-biting election night on Sunday, the centre-left looked likely to secure a slim majority in parliament. The Sweden ‌Democrats lost more seats than any other party and looked set to win 17.6% of the vote, down three percentage points from four years ago.

In Rinkeby, one of Stockholm’s suburbs with a large immigrant population, the centre-left bloc won 94% of the votes. One resident, 59-year-old sociologist Kahin Ahmed, who is ​originally from Somalia, welcomed the result.

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The Sweden Democrats, ⁠who in parliament have lent support to the right-wing minority government for the past four years while remaining outside the cabinet, ​in part campaigned on sending home larger numbers of immigrants and ending multiculturalism, with proposals such as a ban on traditional Islamic dress ​for women in public.

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Silvia Kakembo, ​founder of the Integration Bureau, a non-partisan organisation that promotes integration, said the Sweden Democrats’ efforts to expel immigrants and their proposal to withdraw already ‌granted ⁠residence permits had gone too far, helping mobilise some voters against them.

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Across town, in ​the suburb of Skarholmen, Celil ​Tamturk, 59, originally from Turkey, ⁠said he was very happy about the tentative result and that he had been put off by Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Akesson’s comments on Islam and immigrants.

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