Published 12 January 2022 at 17.16
Domestic. The Sweden Democrats were today taught by Annie Lööf (C) for a formulation in her political program. After the criticism, SD quickly deleted its own Russia policy from its website – after Jimmie Åkesson declared his allegiance to the United States before the C-leader in the Riksdag.
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“The Sweden Democrats want Sweden to respect the balance between the great powers”, it has been stated on SD's website under the section on the party's defense policy.
The wording rhymes poorly with the expansive strategy that NATO has pursued since the 1990s and of which Sweden has been a part for a few years. SD's text was noticed last week on Twitter by the liberal conspiracy theorist Patrik Oksanen:
So what does this mean @sdriks ? How should we interpret that & quot; the balance between the great powers should be respected & quot; in the light of Putin's list of demands – which also encroaches on Sweden and Finland's sovereignty? Is not the European security system worth defending? #äkpol #turpo #FISE pic.twitter.com/5Y5I10XUZA
& mdash; Patrik Oksanen (@patrikoksanen) January 6, 2022
In the party leader debate in the Riksdag on Wednesday, the Center Party's Annie Lööf used the wording about the great powers to attack the SD leader Jimmie Åkesson.
– The Sweden Democrats equate an authoritarian, aggressive, regime like the Russian with the cooperation that exists between a large number of democratic states. It's not only unclear, it's elusive, said Annie Lööf.
Jimmie Åkesson responded to Lööf by describing how he feels at least as bad about Russia as his liberal colleague does.
– No one needs to doubt our credibility when it comes to Sweden's relationship with an authoritarian, imperialist regime like the Russian one. Not even Annie Lööf, asserted the SD leader.
He then went on to call Russia an “authoritarian” and “imperialist” state that “oppresses people” and “threatens its neighbors”. He stated that “Sweden has an enormous responsibility” to stop this together with NATO and the United States.
– And we will of course take that responsibility together with those we work with in the world, said Åkesson.
But the SD leader was not content to swear allegiance to the superpower and its allies. After the debate, it was discovered that the great power & shy; wording had suddenly been completely removed from SD's website.
The party's press manager Oskar Cavalli-Björkman can not answer exactly when the wording was deleted, writes Aftonbladet. He refers to a Twitter post from SD's defense policy spokesman Per Söderlund, who writes that the text is from the party's election manifesto from 2018.
“The security policy situation is constantly changing and so are the measures that the Riksdag needs take to meet threats to our sovereignty “, writes Per Söderlund.
– I think the work has been going on for quite some time to redo the website for the coming election period. Our party website has been idle during the term of office, it is part of the update work, says Cavalli-Björkman to Aftonbladet.