As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here’s an update from our Swedish correspondent Svenne Tvaerskaegg with more information of the coordinated mass car-burnings that took place across Sweden the night before last.
. . . "The Swedish government has been put in an extremely difficult position by the arson attacks. The general election is less than one month away, and the main ruling party, the Social Democrats, are rapidly dropping in the polls as the nationalist and anti-immigration Sweden Democrats are rapidly rising. It was already likely the Sweden Democrats would emerge as the largest party in the Swedish parliament, and the arson attacks will only increase this probability. They have brought a new dimension to the pre-election situation and presented Prime Minister Stefan Löfven with an impossible dilemma. He has to be seen as strong and taking effective measures against the arsonists, but any large-scale police action in the ghettos will inevitably trigger riots on a scale not seen since the Stockholm ghetto riots of 2013. This would make a very bad situation even worse as the world’s eyes, and Swedish voters’ eyes, are on television images of pitched battles and burning cities. This is something Mr. Löfven definitely does not want, but may have to face up to.
"It is going to be a very interesting run-up to the election in Sweden."
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