New Democracy Ny Demokrati | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founders | Ian Wachtmeister Bert Karlsson |
| Founded | 4 February 1991 |
| Dissolved | 25 February 2000 |
| Headquarters | Stockholm andGothenburg |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Right-wing |
| Colours | Yellow |
| Website | |
| nydemokrati.se (defunct) | |
New Democracy (Swedish:Ny Demokrati, NyD) was a political party inSweden. It was founded in 1991 and elected into theRiksdag in the1991 Swedish general election. It lost all its seats in the Riksdag in thesubsequent election in 1994, and its subsequent decline culminated inbankruptcy in February 2000, at which time it retained only one city council post. Local factions of New Democracy reformed into minor parties such as Sjöbopartiet, which experienced mixed success.
New Democracy campaigned on an agenda of reform and restricted immigration, initially on economic rather than cultural grounds. Its economic policy, stressing the importance ofentrepreneurship andderegulation, was generally perceived asright-wing. The party favored Swedish application forEuropean Union membership, which was attained in 1995. It also called for wide-scale political reform, including cutting government departments, reducing the Riksdag to 151 members and electing the Prime Minister by direct ballot.
These years were the only time aright-wing populist party had been represented in the Riksdag until the election of members of theSweden Democrats in September 2010.[10][11]
Before New Democracy was formed, both foundersBert Karlsson andIan Wachtmeister were well known in Sweden ascharismatic public figures; Karlsson aself-made man, founder, owner and manager of both arecord company and anamusement park; and Count Wachtmeister, a businessman from a highly esteemedaristocratic family.[12][13] They had also been noted for some limited non-partisan political activity.[12] They had planned starting a party for a short time, as they met for the first time in mid-November 1990 in acafé at theStockholm-Arlanda Airport, waiting for a flight.[14] There, they discussed the matter after Wachtmeister had read inExpressen that Karlsson had "appointed" him prime minister in his dream-team government.[14] Appearing on television on 23 November, a specially commissionedSifo poll was announced where 23% of voters had responded that they could imagine voting for "Bert Karlsson's party".[14] Thus, the party had been secured popular support as well as media attention already before it had been formed.[14]
Karlsson and Wachtmeister announced the formation of their new party in an article inDagens Nyheter on 25 November 1990, titled "Here is our party program" (Här är vårt partiprogram).[11][15] The party was given the name New Democracy on 1 December 1990, and was formally founded at a meeting inSkara on 4 February 1991 after having collected the required number of signatures for official registration.[11][15] A few days after the party was launched, the party received 11.7% support in an opinion poll inDagens Industri (which apparently had been manipulated by Karlsson), and again the same in a poll in March bySifo.[11] It held its first party conference on 1–2 June the same year.[16] The first big setback for the party came when Karlsson appeared on the television programMagasinet.[15] During the show, he was incapable of answering the occasional complex political questions thrown at him by the host, and failed to explain how they sought to implement the party's political program.[15] Karlsson in turn soon resigned as party leader.[15]
The party ran an election-show which was totally unconventional in Swedish politics.[17] Wachtmeister and Karlsson for instance became known for illustrating their economic arguments by piling up empty beer crates.[13] They popularly became known as "The Count and the Valet", noting their contrasting backgrounds.[13] In the summer of 1991, some opinion polls showed more than 10% support for the party.[16] During an election-night television program,Bengt Westerberg, leader of theLiberal People's Party, left the studio in protest against New Democracy's immigration policy.[18]Alf Svensson of theChristian Democrats andOlof Johansson of theCentre Party followed shortly after.[19] In the1991 general election, the party won 6.7% of the vote and 25 seats. In the Riksdag, New Democracy abstained from voting on the office ofPrime Minister, and thus gave the four-party liberal-conservative government led byCarl Bildt its indirect support.[20]
While Karlsson would appear in the chamber in inappropriate attire, Wachtmeister engaged more willfully in politics.[13] The two, however, soon fell out, likely due to their contradictory perspectives.[21] By 1992, it became more clear that the party chose to campaign on a line of criticism of immigration; for instance demanding a decreasedforeign aid, expulsion of immigrants committing crime, loans rather than grants and temporary residence permits instead of asylum.[11] The party also started to disintegrate as a result of defections from the parliamentary group, exclusions, peculiar statements in the media, scandals and internal strife.[11] In the summer of 1993, the party's rising starVivianne Franzén started to talk about immigrant rape andMuslim ritual murders.[11]
By October 1993, the division between Karlsson and Wachtmeister became clearer, while the party's support had fallen to around 4.4%.[11] When Wachtmeister stepped down as chairman in February 1994, he was followed by an almost unprecedented power struggle.[11] While Wachtmeister launched Sten Dybeck as a new chairman, Karlsson proposed Pelle Svensson and Carl Hamilton.[11] In April, Harriet Colliander was chosen as new chairman instead, just to be followed by Wachtmeister's new candidate Vivianne Franzén in June.[11] As the party had depended heavily on its two founders, it began to implode immediately after they started to disagree.[22] In early 1994, the party started to initiate cooperation with parties such as theSweden Democrats, theSjöbo Party and theCentre Democrats.[11]
By the next election, the party had largely become the subject of ridicule.[23] The1994 general election became a huge failure for the party, as it received only 1.4% of the vote and lost all its seats.[11] The municipal elections also saw its local support shredded, where its former 335 representatives dropped to 53.[11] Already before the election, many local chapters of the party had broken out from the party, and established new local parties.[11] The organization became marked by internal power struggles over the control of party funds, and it quickly fell into dismay (at least at a national level). Bert Karlsson established the local party Skara Future (Skara Framtid) in 1995,[11] and Ian Wachtmeister went on to found a party called theNew Party [sv] (Det Nya Partiet) for the 1998 elections.[24] Burned by the experience of New Democracy, Wachtmeister hand-picked the board, and the party did not have any conventions or accept any members.[24] The party failed to attract enough votes for representation in the Riksdag and was dissolved.
The1998 elections saw New Democracy losing all but one of its municipal representatives. The party ceased to exist when it was declared bankrupt on 25 February 2000.Laholm city council representative Elver Åkesson retained his seat until the 2002 elections, the last active member of the party to hold office.[25] "New Democracy" was founded again in April 2002 under a new organisational registration,[26] and attempted to run for the2002 elections, but received a mere 106 votes nationwide.[27] The party's website was shut down in March 2005.[28]
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Commentators |
Unlike other right-wing populist parties, New Democracy saw economic issues as superior and more important than cultural issues.[29] In its introduction, the party program asserted that it would always base its policies oncommon sense, personal liberty and consideration for others.[29] The 1991 election survey found that the party's voters was motivated foremost by its position on immigration issues and its economic policy, two issues that were growing in importance at the time.[30] In addition, twice as many people as actually voted for the party, nevertheless approved of its asylum policies.[31]
The party set out a plan to reduce the overall taxation in Sweden from 57% (which it was in 1989), to 47% within six years, as it cited the average overall taxation in theOECD countries to be 37% the same time. It sought to reduce public expenses, sell state-owned properties and abolish state monopolies.[32] The party competed with theModerate Party on how steep tax cuts should be, and sought to "outbid" them.[33]
The party saw it as "obvious" for Sweden to join theEuropean Union, and wanted to relinquish Sweden's policy of neutrality. It wanted Sweden's foreign policy to mainly concern itself with relations with Sweden's "real neighbours," which it regarded to be; Denmark, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Poland and Russia, as well as its trading partners in Europe and North America.[34] It also wanted to stopforeign aid to oppressive regimes, particularlysocialist ones, and instead give aid for humanitarian efforts and emergency aid, as it wanted to "help people, not governments."[35]
The party wanted to invest heavily in the fight against drug abuse and street violence, and impose severe penalties for what it called related "gangster activity." It wanted to implement harder punishments for violent crime, andlife imprisonment for the most dangerous criminals.[36]
The party's anti-immigration stance was largely argued on economic terms, most often by comparing immigration costs and tax-cuts, althoughwelfare chauvinism also sometimes was an element.[37] The party wanted to introduce temporary residence permits for refugees, and that those who were allowed to stay should immediately be assimilated into Swedish society.[37] It wished to set refugees to work, rather than in camps, and to reject foreign citizens who committed serious crimes.[35] Compared to other right-wing populist parties, issues of culture and ethnicity were heavily downplayed.[37]
Although downplayed, in a 1991 interview Wachtmeister accused African refugees of having introducedAIDS to Sweden, and expressed displeasure about the lower share of "ethnic citizens" (ethnic Swedes) compared to other Western countries.[38] The party's anti-immigration stance escalated during its term in the Riksdag. In the party's 1993 summer camp, Vivianne Franzén (who became party leader in 1994) described a murder committed by a mentally ill immigrant as aMuslim ritual murder, and also warned that Swedish school children soon would have to turn towardsMecca.[38]
Although typically compared to the parties, New Democracy officially distanced itself from both theright-wing populistDanish Progress Party and theNorwegian Progress Party.[39]
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 368,281 | 6.7 (#6) | 25 / 349 |  25 | External support |
| 1994 | 68,663 | 1.2 (#8) | 0 / 349 |  25 | Extra-parliamentary |
| 1998 | 8,297 | 0.2 (#12) | 0 / 349 | Extra-parliamentary |
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/– |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 188,085 | 3.4 | 335 / 13,526 | 335 |
| 1994 | 62,550 | 1.1 | 53 / 13,550 | 282 |
| 1998 | N/A | N/A | 0 / 13,388 | 53 |
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 2,841 | 0.1 | 0 / 22 |
