Why is Sweden's government risking Nato talks for a single MP? (likely no Nato for now for us)

[Celerity]

Sweden's ruling Social Democrats on Tuesday confirmed that they would stick to their deal with an independent MP, even though it seems incompatible with Turkey's conditions for backing Swedish Nato membership. What's going on?

https://www.thelocal.se/20220607/explainer-why-is-swedens-government-risking-nato-talks-for-a-single-mp/


Independent MP Amineh Kakabaveh makes a speech in parliament ahead of Tuesday's no-confidence vote. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

What has Sweden’s ruling party done?

Sweden’s Social Democrats confirmed on Tuesday that the government will stick to the deal struck in November with the independent MP Amineh Kakabaveh to help Kurds in northern Syria. As a result Kakabaveh is abstaining in the no-confidence vote called by the Sweden Democrats against justice minister Morgan Johansson, meaning it has not passed and Johansson can stay in place.

Why is Sweden’s ruling party in talks with a single MP?

Sweden’s parliament is so evenly split between left and right that Magdalena Andersson was voted in as Prime Minister in November by a single vote. The decisive swing vote was held by a Amineh Kakabaveh, an MP who was ejected from the Left Party in 2019 to become an independent. Kakabaveh had clashed with her party over her strong views about the oppression of women in immigrant communities, due to strict application of Islam, or due to other cultural reasons. In exchange for her vote, she won a commitment from the Social Democrats to “deepen their cooperation” with PYD, the leading political party of Syrian Kurds, which controls The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

“The PYD political party has a crucial role in the autonomous administration and represents a legitimate negotiating partner,” the agreement reads, which is signed by Tobias Baudin, the Social Democrat’s party secretary. “That freedom fighters who have fought with or sympathise with YPG/YPJ or PYD are classed by certain countries’ actors as terrorists is unacceptable.” The agreement also touches on Turkish domestic politics, calling for Selahattin Demirtaş, the former leader of the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, to be released from pre-trial detention. Demirtaş has been held since 2016.

Why might that complicate Sweden’s talks over Nato?

Turkey sees the PYD as identical with the PKK, the militant Kurdish party classed as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US, as well as Turkey. In the demands Turkey published last month, it repeatedly referred to “PKK/PYD”, as a single entity. Turkey is also demanding that Sweden cancel the $376m in funding it has promised the Kurdish government in northern Syria, and that it stop supporting and meeting PYD representatives, both living in Sweden and in Syria. Maria Lemne, a politics professor at Södertorn University, told the DN newspaper that if the Social Democrats are committed to their deal with Kakabaveh, “then we can definitely say goodbye to the Nato negotiations”.

snip


related:


Swedish justice minister survives no-confidence vote

Sweden's justice minister Morgan Johansson has narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in the parliament after his party secured the abstention of a pro-Kurd independent MP.

https://www.thelocal.se/20220607/breaking-swedish-justice-minister-survives-no-confidence-vote/


Justice Minister Morgan Johansson awaits the result of the no-confidence vote on Tuesday. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

Of Sweden’s 349 MPs, 174 voted to topple the long-serving minister, 97 voted against, 70 abstained and eight were absent, leaving the Sweden Democrats who filed the motion one vote short of the majority needed for it to pass. As usually happens in Sweden, all MPs present stuck to their party lines, with the Sweden Democrats, Moderates, Christian Democrats, and Liberals all voting to fell Johansson, the Social Democrats voting to keep him, and the MPs for the Centre and Left parties abstaining.

Johansson’s position, and potentially that of the whole government, hang on the vote of one MP, Amineh Kakabaveh, who left the Left Party in 2019 after a dispute with the party leadership over her campaigning against the oppression of women among immigrant groups in Sweden. Kakabaveh agreed to abstain in the vote on Tuesday morning after the Social Democrat’s secretary Tobias Baudin publicly stated that the party would stand by a deal it struck with her last November to support the Kurdish government in northern Syria. Kakabaveh is an Iranian Kurd who fled to Sweden as a teenager.

After the vote, Kakabaveh ran up to Johansson and hugged him. “There has been a lot of pressure on both him and me and now it is over,” she said. “Morgan Johansson has done an extremely good job when it comes to ‘honour crimes’, as I said in the chamber just before the vote. Sometimes we should also praise each other.”

After the vote, Sweden’s prime minister Magdalena Andersson held a press conference in which she admitted that the political drama could have an impact on Sweden’s Nato application. “There’s no doubt that the turbulence of the last few days could affect the image of Sweden, particularly in this sensitive situation,” she said. She denied, however, that the party had made any additional pledges to Kakabaveh.

snip

[James48]

1. So....did I get that right?

Sweden has:

Democrats,
Moderates,
Christian Democrats,
and Liberals

AND Social Democrats.



And not a single word about anyone Republican!

No WONDER they have such a nice country!

[Just A Box Of Rain]

2. I hate to break it to you...

but in Sweden, the Sverigedemokraterna (Swedish Democrats) are a right/far-right party.

[Celerity]

3. The Moderates are the old Conservative Party'newish name, and, like most of the rest of the world,

(unlike the US, where liberal somehow means leftish) the Liberals are a centre right party.

The Christian Democrats are RW (Euro RW mostly, not batshit cray US RW) conservatives, and the Sweden Democrats are far right nationalists, extremely anti immigrant (the refugee immigrants mostly, especially the Muslims) with a smattering of borderline Nazis (most were booted out long ago, or left), although economically the Sweden Democrats (SD)are pretty left wing.

Another twist is that many, many of the far right here (not just Parties, but regular people too) are VERY anti Russia.

Most Swedish parties (except for the rightward third of the Moderates and then most of KD, aka Christian Democrats, plus the most rightward parts of the centre right Centre Party, and the most right parts of the centre right Liberals) would be far left in the US economically and on other issues as well.

I am a member of the Social Democrats, we are centre left to left, extraordinarily pro union and welfare state (folkhemmet ie the people's home), and by far the dominant party in the 20th century and sometimes now as well, but nothing like the 1930s to 1980s. We are not socialists, in fact Vänsterpartiet (The Left Party aka the socialists and communists) has never been in a ruling government with us (sometime they are in confidence and supply schemes that allow us to form a ruling government), and many times S (Social Democrats) has actively worked to clandestinely suppress Vänster.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. "Republican" in Sweden would mean anti-monarchy

I don't think there's enough feeling about that for anyone to base a party on it. Anyone who is anti-monarchy is more likely to be far left anyway, I'd guess.

[Celerity]

4. Sweden's NATO Bid Is in Trouble

Domestic politics have elevated a Kurdish parliamentarian, and that worsens Stockholm’s Turkey woes.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/06/swedens-nato-bid-trouble/367877/

[crickets]

6. Thanks for the article. It does help clarify the situation. nt