Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) is a Swedish political party. Founded by Leif Zeilon, the party has its origins in the 1980s movement Bevara Sverige Svenskt ("Keep Sweden Swedish"). Since the mid 1990s the current party leader Mikael Jansson has strived to make the party more respectable, modelling the party after other euronationalist parties, most prominently Front National. This has included ousting more openly extremist members, who instead founded the breakout Nationaldemokraterna.
Though still small, the Sweden Democrats have recently seen its support increase somewhat and the party received 1.4% in the September 2002 general elections. It is currently represented in some 10% of Sweden's municipalities. Nonetheless, the Sweden Democrats are still far from attaining their main goal of representation in Sweden's parliament (the Riksdag); that would require a 4% electoral support.
Considered xenophobic by some, including the political parties currently represented in parliament, the Sweden Democrats are occasionally compared to Front National in France and British National Party in the United Kingdom. A better parallel according to some is the paleoconservative movement in the U.S. During the 1998 general election, Front National gave 500 000 kr to finance the printing of the Sweden Democrats' brochures.
According to a report by the Swedish think tank Timbro, each year over 2 billion Swedish kronas are used by various agencies on such campaigns, dwarfing any of the few think tanks that exist in the country.
In a study of the political attitude among the members of the boards of Swedish universities it was shown that over 60 percent had outspoken support of the Social Democrats and 75 percent had connections to the party.
The party secretary of the Social Democrats has gone as far as claiming that Swedish corporations have gone together in a conspiracy to reduce investments so that the economic situation is bad during the election year, threatening the Social Democratic partiesÂ’ chances to cling to power.
The Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party or Social Democrats (Swedish: Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti or Socialdemokraterna; literally, "Social Democratic Workers' Party of Sweden" and "Social Democrats") is a major political party in Sweden.
The Social Democratic Party's position is in theory a revision of marxism.
Swedish society as it is generally depicted abroad was a result of this policy.
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