Moderates Achieve Their Own Majority Here

The Moderates had a successful showing in this year’s parliamentary election. In the municipality of Staffanstorp, the party led by Christian Sonesson did even better, now achieving their own majority. The question now is whether the cooperation with the Sweden Democrats will continue or be abandoned.

If the preliminary figures hold, the Moderates will receive almost 53 percent in the Staffanstorp municipal election—an increase of just over eight percentage points.

“It’s an outstanding election result. I feel a great gratitude to all the municipality’s residents who have turned out. It’s a bit overwhelming but also a great sense of gratitude and humility,” he told Sydsvenskan.

Even though the support has increased so markedly and the party now holds its own majority, he does not think there will be any major changes in how they will work going forward, more of a “business as usual” approach.

Sonesson interprets the numbers as indicating that many voters are pleased with how the municipality is governed. He also points to factors such as good school results, a positive outcome for the municipal economy and business climate, as well as high scores in the Swedish Police Authority’s safety rankings.

Since 2018, the Moderates have governed Staffanstorp together with the Sweden Democrats. How things will look going forward remains unclear. Sonesson says he is “open to cooperating with anyone who wants to participate and make our municipality even better.”

Wants to Continue the Cooperation

Just as on the national level, the Sweden Democrats are losing support locally in the municipality, with results here projected to be minus 2.7 percentage points.

“We already saw in the last election that many residents of Staffanstorp voted for us at the national level but for the Moderates locally. People might not fully realize that the Sweden Democrats are part of the municipal administration and that we’ve seen 95 percent of our policies implemented over the past two terms,” says Margit Persson Békássy, vice chair of the Sweden Democrats in Staffanstorp, to Sydsvenskan.

She believes that the Sweden Democrats are doing good things locally, but the major party gets all the credit. As an example, she points to the ban on begging, which originated from Sweden Democrat motions. At the same time, she hopes for continued cooperation with the Moderates.