Is Europe Turning Right?


Following recent elections in Denmark and Switzerland one would perhaps not be deemed far off the mark for thinking so. In Denmark, last week’s election meant that the centre-right government of Anders Fogh Rasmussen remains in power, although with a slightly smaller majority than before. In spite of his party loosing six seats in the Danish parliament, Fogh Rasmussen remains in power thanks to support from a strengthened Danish People’s Party – a populist far right anti-immigration party. In Switzerland, the far right Swiss People’s Party gained a record number of seats in the Swiss federal parliament and strengthened its position as the single biggest party in last month’s election. The Swiss People’s Party’s campaign, among other things, included a proposal prohibiting the building of minarets on mosques and a poster portraying three white sheep standing on the Swiss flag while kicking a black sheep off the flag. The results in Denmark and Switzerland follow general elections in Sweden and France, which, in 2006, saw the right-of-centre Frederik Reinfeldt becoming prime minister in Sweden (a country otherwise known for embodying moderate socialist policies) and, in 2007, Nikolas Sarkozy becoming president of France following a twelve-year reign of Jacques Chirac.

Although some of these results are no doubt more to do with national voters being unhappy with incumbent governments (for a number of reasons), as was the case in Sweden, rather than an actual change of ideological heart, the result in Switzerland, and to a lesser extent Denmark, do give cause for concern. In particular given the, at times, xenophobic, and other times outright racist, tone of the election campaign in Switzerland and the general political debate in Denmark. Notwithstanding the fact that governments come and go, and so do ideological sentiments among the electorate, perhaps comfort can be found in the forthcoming US presidential election where Bush’s and the Republicans’ time appear to be running out.

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