Election of second deputy speaker
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
SD nominates Julia Kronlid as she has competence, experience and personality 1. M believes that the principle of proportionality should apply and supports SD's candidate 2. KD also believes that the principle of proportionality is central and that it is regrettable if the election result is not taken into account 3. L believes that the will of the people and the principle of proportionality are important and therefore votes for Julia Kronlid 4. V does not support a Sweden Democrat as second deputy speaker as the party spreads anxiety and fear and welcomes MP's candidate 5. MP nominates Janine Alm Ericson in order not to passively accept that racism and opposition to abortion are allowed in the speaker's presidium 6. C cannot stand behind a representative from a party that makes distinctions between people and opposed women's right to their own bodies 7. C accepts the principle that the distribution of mandates governs the composition but does not stand behind the nomination from SD and will vote blank 7. C has chosen to actively support Andreas Norlén from M and Kenneth G Forslund from S 7.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Henrik Vinge (SD)
Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by congratulating Andreas Norlén and Kenneth G Forslund, who have been elected by broad consensus to the positions of Speaker of the Riksdag and First Deputy Speaker. It is also with pride that I, on behalf of the Sweden Democrat, Moderate, Christian Democrat, and Liberal group, nominate Julia Kronlid to the position of Second Deputy Speaker.
Election of second deputy speaker
Julia's competence, merits, and personality make her extremely well-suited for this assignment. During her twelve years as a Member of Parliament, where she has served in a number of different committees, Julia has acquired an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the role of a Member of Parliament. This experience, in combination with the fact that she has also served on the Parliamentary Board and as second deputy group leader, has also given her a deeper insight into and understanding of the Riksdag Administration's functioning and the spokespersons' ongoing work.
Through her service as vice party leader and member of the church board, she also has good experience of and understanding of what it means to lead and represent large democratic organizations with many employees.
Through her service in the war delegation, she also has good knowledge of the Riksdag's crisis and preparedness work. Through the broad foreign policy competence that Julia has acquired after many years of service in the Riksdag's Committee on Foreign Affairs, in the Council of Europe's Swedish delegation, in the EU Committee, and so on, we believe that Julia also has much to contribute to the Speaker's Bureau's important international representation mission.
By combining several extremely demanding and responsible assignments in the service of democracy with her role as a mother of multiple children, Julia has also been a role model and source of inspiration for many women, both within and outside our party. This experience has also made her interested in continuing to develop and adapt the member's mandate and the administration's functioning to suit members with all types of life situations and backgrounds.
Among those who have had the privilege of working with Julia, she is known to be a person who combines leadership ability, determination, and competence with a strong human warmth and a constantly present care for the people around her. Whether it has been in her previous life roles as an assistant nurse, caregiver, social pedagogue, aid worker in Papua New Guinea, chair of the Hepatica Foundation – which has helped everyone from Syrian refugee children to Swedish poor pensioners – or in her latest role as spokesperson in the Social Insurance Committee, the care for the sick and the poor has run as a common thread through Julia's life's work. This combination of experience, competence, leadership ability, and a warm heart, I believe, makes Julia an extremely suitable candidate for the important and honorable position of the Speaker's second deputy.
Annika Hirvonen (MP)
Madam Speaker! When the knowledge of the cooperation between the Moderates, the Christian Democrats, and the Liberals with the Sweden Democrats reached beyond Sweden's borders, it led not only to raised eyebrows but to terror.
So a former neo-Nazi movement became kingmaker in Sweden, writes the British BBC.
The Washington Post reports that Sweden's new government coalition rests on a party founded by neo-Nazis.
At Reuters, one can read: A further piece of evidence of a rightward shift is that the anti-immigration Sverigedemokraterna are overtaking the Moderaterna as Sweden's second-largest party and largest in the opposition - a historical shift in a country that has long been proud of its tolerance and openness.
These are headlines from a Europe that knows what racism, populism, and xenophobia do in the corridors of power. It is about a fear that stems from a European historical experience of what it means when racism and Nazism gain influence over government power. We have seen it further back, and we also see today what happens in countries like Hungary, Poland, Russia, and previously in the USA under Donald Trump. We see what happens when parties resembling the Sverigedemokraterna gain power.
It is noticeable when women's rights and hbtqi people's rights are curtailed. It is noticeable when minorities' rights are weakened, free media is restricted, and democratic institutions and the principles of the rule of law are hollowed out.
Madam Speaker! Many have been rightly outraged that SD today nominates Julia Kronlid, who questions science and the theory of evolution. It is, of course, completely shocking that such a discussion is even being had in Sweden in 2022. But even more alarming is that her party, Sverigedemokraterna, is a party that denies the science of our time's greatest crisis, the climate crisis. They will do everything they can to pause, scrap, and demolish Sweden's climate work. It is alarming!
Even more have protested against the fact that it is an anti-abortion advocate who is now being proposed – a person who has actively worked in the Riksdag to limit women's right to decide over their own bodies. Anti-abortion kills women.
Earlier this year, I visited Poland. That was where women from Sweden traveled, if they had the opportunity, to gain access to safe abortions at the time my grandmother was young. Now, the right to abortion is completely abolished in Poland. It was not abolished overnight. The right to abortion was abolished step by step. Julia Kronlid wants to take such a step.
When I was in Poland, I walked through the streets of Gdansk together with five-month-old Gustav and his mother Joanna. Joanna told me that she trusted her midwife when the midwife said that everything was fine with the fetus she was carrying. But she said that this is no longer a given everywhere. There are women who are met by doctors who do not tell the truth, so that the women will not travel to another country and have an abortion.
In Poland, women are now being forced to carry pregnancies to term even with children whom one knows will only be held in one's arms for a few days before they die. That kind of torture is inhuman. Refugees from Ukraine who have been raped by Russian soldiers are also being forced to carry pregnancies to term and give birth to these murderers' children.
The right to abortion is one of the rights that right-wing nationalist forces have given up first all around our world where they have taken power. In Sweden, the right to abortion has until now had a rock-solid support. It is inappropriate to choose someone who wants to erode that support as second deputy speaker in Sweden's Riksdag.
In Sweden, it is other human rights that are already today at least as challenged as the right to abortion is around our world: the right to asylum, the rights of trans people, and the right to be free from racism and discrimination based on religion and skin color. And you know what, it is not the privileges of the majority that are threatened over the coming four years, but it is the minorities'. In the everyday lives of the majority, it will not be noticed so much that power now lies in the hands of a racist party. But in this election campaign, I have met those who feel in their bones what happens when the racist rhetoric is not only heard from presiding desks and podiums in the Riksdag but also increasingly from colleagues and on the subway.
I met a mother whose 18-year-old son wants to move to Ireland, where he was visiting with his male friends: Mom! There I was not subjected to racism. And today in Aftonbladet, the researcher in medicine Abdimajid Osman writes that he and his family now choose to leave Sweden because of the xenophobia.
We in Miljöpartiet want to be a different voice. We promise to be a different voice every day - an anti-racist voice and a voice for decency. We want the entire Speaker's Presidium to speak for all of Sweden - everyone who belongs here, who was born here and who has moved here.
I am not standing here today on behalf of the Green Party and proposing a candidate for second deputy speaker because it is something we consider we have a right to by virtue of size or practice, but the Green Party is putting forward its own candidate because we cannot sit here and passively accept that it is voted for by acclamation so that racism and opposition to abortion can have a place in the speaker's presidency even in Sweden. And we want to give everyone the opportunity to take a stand.
The election of the Speaker is not just a symbolic choice. It is also about which values we want should represent Sweden in the Riksdag and internationally. I want our Speaker to represent the values that are expressed, among other things, in the Instrument of Government. It is about respect for all people's equal value and for the individual human being's freedom and dignity. It is about the ideas of democracy becoming guiding in all areas of society and about all people being able to achieve participation and equality. It is about countering discrimination of people based on gender, skin color, national or ethnic origin, linguistic or religious affiliation, disability, sexual orientation, age, or other circumstances.
Therefore, I now nominate Janine Alm Ericson from Miljöpartiet. Janine Alm Ericson has extensive experience of work in the Riksdag. She has been a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Finance Committee. She has been a group leader and a member of the Riksdag Board. And she has worked actively for women's rights and the right to safe and legal abortions throughout the world, particularly during her time as State Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
History and future generations are watching us. Each of us has a choice. I choose that my first action as a member of the Riksdag during this mandate period is to stand up for equality, anti-racism, science, and humanity by nominating a candidate for second deputy speaker who represents the values and the Sweden that we in Miljöpartiet want to see.
The alternative – to stand passively by, lay down our votes and let the Sweden Democrats gain power – is unthinkable. As has been so wisely said about evil, the most dangerous thing is not the evil of the wicked but the silence of the good. We will never be silent.
In order for each person to feel responsible only to themselves and their own conscience, I also request a closed vote.
SAMUEL GONZALEZ WESTLING (V)
Madam Speaker! In the Speaker's mandate, one must not only represent one's own party, but one must represent the entire Riksdag and the entire Swedish people in contacts with other countries. It is therefore not possible to have a representative for a party that actively sows division between people who live and reside in Sweden. The anxiety and fear that the Sweden Democrats and their representatives spread in the country towards people depending on their origin and religion or depending on whether they belong to a minority is unacceptable. For large parts of the population, their right to exist in society is called into question. This means that a Speaker from the Sweden Democrats can never be a representative for the entire Swedish people.
For these reasons, the Left Party does not support a Sweden Democrat as second deputy speaker. There are, admittedly, today several other parties in this chamber that, in their own interest, have chosen to normalize the Sweden Democrats and turn a blind eye to the racist view of humanity that they often express. They do so without taking into account the residents and citizens in this country who every day struggle and toil for themselves and for the sake of their families. It is clear that the representatives of those parties no longer seem to have any problems with the Sweden Democrats.
Some parties have, however, in like manner with the Left Party, been clear in their view on the Sweden Democrats. We hoped therefore that we would be able to find a suitable counter-candidate in the election for second deputy speaker. We extended a hand to the Center Party and offered our support for a nomination of a Center Party second deputy speaker. In that way, we could have obtained a candidate who could represent the entire Swedish people.
Unfortunately, the Center Party has chosen not to accept that offer, but instead, the Green Party has now nominated Janine Alm Ericson as second deputy speaker. The Left Party welcomes this, and we stand behind her as second deputy speaker.
Tobias Billström (M)
Madam President, honorable members of the Riksdag! The Speaker's presidency has historically reflected the election result and the composition of the Riksdag. The Vice Speaker has, according to practice in the Swedish Riksdag until the last general election in 2018, been elected in relation to the size of their parties in the chamber. The Moderates believe that the principle of proportionality should apply in the election of the Vice Speaker and will therefore support the Sverigedemokraternas candidate.
Camilla Brodin (KD)
Madam Speaker, honorable members of the Riksdag! For the Christian Democrats, the principle of proportionality is central. We believe that it should apply in the election of the second deputy speaker. The positions as deputy speakers have historically been allocated to the parties in proportion to their size in the chamber. We therefore think it is regrettable that parties in the Swedish Riksdag believe that the election result should not be taken into account in the appointment of the second deputy speaker and that the principle of proportionality is not respected.
The Moderates, the Sweden Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals agree to nominate Julia Kronlid, SD, as the second deputy speaker of the Riksdag. The Christian Democrats' parliamentary group will vote for Julia Kronlid as the second deputy speaker of the Riksdag.
Mats Persson (L)
Madam Speaker, honorable members! For the Liberals, it is important that the will of the Swedish people is respected. We believe that the principle of proportionality is important. We thought so in 2014, we thought so in 2018, and we think so in 2022. The Liberals' parliamentary group will therefore vote for Julia Kronlid as the Riksdag's second deputy speaker.
Annie Lööf (C)
Madam Speaker, honorable members of the Swedish Parliament! The Sweden Democrats, the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals have chosen to nominate Julia Kronlid, Sweden Democrats, as second deputy speaker.
The Sweden Democrats are a party that time and again makes distinctions between people. It is a party that, now also according to their own white paper, has racist and anti-democratic roots. They have an authoritarian, nationalist ideological base that is the opposite of everything that the Centre Party stands for.
The Center Party cannot stand behind such a party's representative, moreover a representative who for a long time in the chamber of the Riksdag has opposed women's right to their own body through restricted abortion rights and statutory right to freedom of conscience for healthcare personnel.
We do, however, accept the principle that the distribution of mandates governs the composition of the Speaker's Presidium, but the Center Party does not stand behind the nomination that M, KD and L, with the Sweden Democrats at the forefront, have chosen to make. The Center Party will today, just as we did after the 2018 election, mark this by voting blank in the ballot. We also did so after the 2014 election, then together with the Alliance's four parties as well as the Green Party and the Social Democrats.
In the election of the Moderate Andreas Norlén as Sweden's Speaker and the Social Democrat Kenneth G Forslund as first deputy speaker, the Center Party's parliamentary group has today chosen to actively support these individuals. In the election of the Sweden Democrat Julia Kronlid as second deputy speaker, we do not stand behind the current nomination and therefore vote blank.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.