10 September 2022

A notable difference between Social Democrats in Sweden and Finland

New members will soon be elected to the parliament of Sweden. Therefore an analysis of attitudes and values of Swedish parties was published in Aftonbladet - an afternoon magazine - as a part of a voting advice application. 

The economic, environmental and educational dimensions were as expected, namely Left Party being the most "progressive" in economy and related issues and Moderate and small Christian Democratic parties located at the "conservative" end of the distribution. Social Democrats were on the "progressive" side, but with some distance from the Left and Green Parties. All of that would have been quite similar among the corresponding parties in Finland - except that Social Democrats might have been placed closer to the other left wing parties.

The surprise, however, was seen in the immigration policy. There the Swedish Social Democrats were clustered among the right wing parties - very close to the Liberal party and not far even from the Swedish Democrats, considered previously as an ultra right or even a Nazi group due to their criticism against the previous immigration policy. That would not happen in Finland, where Social Democrats - the current Prime Minister party - is still advocating mass immigration from developing countries. 

The reason for the difference between the two Nordic Social Democratic parties is obvious. Sweden is already in huge trouble with their immigrants, and therefore former immigration policy is not popular among voters. In Finland, the problems are so far only rising, and not evident to everyone. 

The question arising is: would voters - or even politicians - in Finland understand, that repeating the unsuccessful immigration policy conducted in Sweden would repeat the Swedish outcome in Finland too? I certainly hope so, but unfortunately can not see much evidence for that. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:

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