The debate on citizenship and political influence after the P4 Dalarna interview

The debate after my interview in P4 Dalarna has run high in our little strange country. The tone feels eerily familiar: the same indignation as twenty years ago, the same silly arguments and the same reluctance to address the issue.

Let me say what I think many Swedes are thinking: all citizens' votes are legally equal, but every path to political influence is not morally equally obvious.

Take Mohamed Abdukardir Ali. Unknown even in his own party, member of V for just over a year and in debt settlement. He was denied citizenship in 2024 due to large personal debts. In February 2026, he nevertheless became a Swedish citizen. A few months later, he was cruised past the Left Party's climate policy spokesperson and into the Riksdag after strong mobilization in the Somali diaspora. I hardly think many Swedes have much faith in that system.

The researchers play dumb in their criticism

This is not "anti-democratic logic". It is a criticism of a system where anonymous officials at the Swedish Migration Agency, not infrequently themselves with a foreign background, can give full political membership to people who have barely had time to take root in the country. A passport creates legal status, but not automatic language, history or cultural roots.

The researchers play dumb in their criticism on DN Debatt (19/9) when they take my words about "voting cattle" literally, as if it were a zoological diagnosis. It is an old polemical expression for a group of voters who are perceived as strongly mobilized for a certain alternative. No one believes that I biologically classify humans as cattle. Playing shocked by the metaphor is a way to avoid discussing the phenomenon.

Hassan Khan, co-founder of Nyans and now in the Gothenburg Vision Party, has described how ethnic and social networks are used in the mobilization. The Left Party member of parliament Nadja Awad herself has spoken about "clan voices" on Instagram. The phenomenon does not arise until the right mentions it.

My problem is that the state first hands out political membership lightly and then demands that the rest of the country adapt

The researchers write that low turnout among people with a foreign background is often seen as a democratic problem. Others may think so. I have never based my criticism on that. My problem is that the state first hands out political membership lightly and then demands that the rest of the country adapt.

They lament that people are "made into something other than full members". But it is exactly the opposite. They have been made full legal members without sufficient requirements for actual anchoring, adaptation and assimilation. It is in that environment that issues of clan voting, bought votes and electoral influence become relevant.

The talk of a "hardening climate for Muslims" must not be used to cast doubt on critics or to silence the discussion of imported anti-Semitism, Swedish hostility, Islamism or criminality. The problems don't go away because someone dislikes the tone.

The right to vote is not forfeited for voting for the opposition. But a country can undermine its self-determination if it distributes citizenship and political influence to an extent that changes the electorate faster than society can assimilate new citizens.

It is not an argument against democracy. It is an argument about who should be part of the political community - and on what terms.