Photo: News Oresund, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The new Swedish Folklistan (The People’s List) party, launched last month by MEP Sara Skyttedal, formerly of the Christian Democrats, has learned the hard way that when you open your doors to anyone, anyone can enter.
Folklistan, created explicitly for the EU elections, made their candidate list for the EU elections open and were less than thrilled when notorious Danish-Swedish Quran-burner Rasmus Paludan decided to put his name on it.
Paludan’s public demonstrations against Islam—burning the Quran in public in several countries—have been met with Muslim riots in Sweden and earned him a travel ban from the UK.
The Folklistan founder was less than thrilled over the new addition. Paludan, she said to Dagens Nyheter, is not welcome in her party because of his very public opposition to Islam, which Skyttedal says violates the party’s requirement for “respecting foundational democratic values,” adding:
We have chosen to have an open list before the election and over 500 people have chosen to stand. Among them there are fantastic people with genuine commitment. But an open list also makes it possible for complete idiots like Rasmus Paludan to run for office.
When asked about his candidacy, Paludan told Samnytt:
What she’s really saying is that she doesn’t like me and doesn’t want me to join the Folklistan party. She’s free to think so, I don’t think very highly of her either, but that doesn’t affect my ability to get elected.
He also admitted that a motive for presenting himself as a candidate is to receive increased police protection, something he has requested due to Islamist threats but has been denied.
An open list means Paludan has the right to be a candidate for the party. If enough Swedes were to choose his name on the ballot, Skyttedal has no power to prevent him from taking a seat in the European Parliament in the name of ‘her’ party.
The chance—or risk—of that happening is, however, very slim, as is indeed Skyttedal’s own return to Brussels. A Swedish party needs 4% of the vote to get a seat in the European Parliament. In addition to that, Paludan would personally need 5% of the votes for his particular party. A recent Novus poll show the “other parties” category (which includes several other parties in addition to Folklistan) at 2.6%.
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/quran-burner-joins-new-swedish-party-for-eu-elections