Sweden on ‘high alert’ for election interference amid Russia tensions

Sweden has said it is on “high alert” for outside intervention in its upcoming election amid increased tensions with Russia.

The Scandinavian country’s recently re-established psychological defence agency said it had seen heightened activity from foreign sources following its application to join Nato and it was prepared for the possibility of “something exceptional” in the lead-up to polling day on 11 September.

After a turbulent period for Swedish politics, including the resignation of Stefan Löfven as prime minister, the rise of Magdalena Andersson, the country’s first female leader, and threats from Vladimir Putin, the latest polls are exceptionally close in a highly charged campaign with a strong focus on immigration.

In what would be a seismic shift to the right, polls suggest the Sweden Democrats, rightwing populists with neo-Nazi roots, could be on track to replace the Moderates as Sweden’s second biggest party.

Generally elections have been a race between left-leaning parties led by Andersson’s Social Democrats and a centre-right coalition led by the Moderates, but even the latter party has in just a few years gone from urging Swedes to “open your hearts” to refugees to embracing the Sweden Democrats – a party whose leader, Jimmie Åkesson, has called for asylum to be cut to “close to zero”.

Sweden’s perceived vulnerabilities to foreign disinformation include on immigration, violent crime, schools, jobs, pensions and rising energy costs.

Mats Engström, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former adviser to a Social Democrat foreign minister, said while it was no surprise violent crime is in the spotlight as deadly shootings rise, discussion linking it to migration has “for years been reinforced by Russian and other troll factories”.

He said the Swedish election system was “robust” but disinformation aimed at the end of the election campaign would be much harder to counteract.

Mikael Östlund, a spokesperson for the psychological defence agency, said: ““We have a high alert all the time but we are aware of the fact that it might be an occasion that someone would like to harm Sweden, impact the Swedish democracy process, to do something exceptional towards the end of the election campaign.”

The cold war-era government body, intended to protect democracy, freedom of opinion and independence, was reintroduced in January amid rising fears over Russian aggression.

Östlund said it saw “increased activity” from outside the country, some of which was “quite intense”, after Sweden’s decision to apply to become a Nato member. Ongoing disinformation campaigns, understood to be coming from Russia, include claims that Sweden is a weak country and is not safe for refugees.

“It’s something that we have seen before from Russian actors and also individuals,” Östlund said. “We know that foreign powers and countries that have the capacity might be interested in harming Sweden and harming the elections, or trying to widen divisions between ethnic groups.

“So we are prepared for the event that during the last weeks, the closer to the election day we come, there might be something that occurs that we have quite a short time to counter.”

In the event of foreign intervention, options for countering it include going public with the breach and naming the source. A recently launched public awareness campaign warned “bli inte lurad” (don’t be fooled) and encouraged people to think about the source and publisher of information before sharing it online. A free online course from the agency shows how to protect against disinformation.

The election also faces the threat of intervention by individuals and extremists. A prosecutor confirmed last week that Annie Lööf, the leader of the Centre party, was the planned target of a suspected terror attack, which killed another woman, at a political festival in Gotland in July.

Frederik Bratt, the Swedish security service’s commanding officer for the election, said while there was no indication of an increased threat targeting the election, the ongoing threat of lone actors was “complex and a challenge”.

Engström said if the Social Democrats held on to power after the election, it would largely be down to Andersson’s personal popularity, but if they lose the party’s focus on crime during the campaign will come under question. He said the Moderates also faced a backlash among the party’s former voters over its embrace of the Sweden Democrats, which could prove “catastrophic”.

“If Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson still can form a new government, he will be very dependent on the Sweden Democrats,” Engström said. “This will affect Sweden’s policy also internationally, for example lower ambitions in climate policy.”

In Rinkeby, a Stockholm neighbourhood with a large immigrant population, Abebe Hailu, 69, was on Wednesday campaigning for the Social Democrats in front of a shipping container decorated in a poster that read “Our Stockholm region can do better”. He said the issues people care about most are welfare, schools, healthcare and jobs.

“Our party thinks in the first-hand you should invest in children, before it becomes set,” he said.

Welfare is the solution to problems in Swedish society, he added. “We must reduce the class gap between rich and poor and that means good schools for the children.”