Electoral fraud in Borlänge: A fragile illusion of trust

"We didn't see it coming" is a naive statement from the past, which unfortunately is being recalled again when the scandal with the suspected election fraud in Borlänge only seems to grow, where two left-wing politicians are now involved and which has caused the National Anti-Corruption Unit to start an investigation into "improper actions during voting".

In Sweden, trust is perhaps the most embraced and highly valued thing we have. We trust people to do the right thing. We trust that our social systems last and that they are not exploited for personal gain. But time and time again it has proven to be a fantasy. A society that builds its foundations on trust is a beautiful society in theory, in practice it is a fragile illusion.

When manipulation, corruption and infiltration (think, for example, of how organized crime has made its way into the justice system) increasingly begin to be noticed in Sweden, it will affect trust in fellow human beings as well as authorities and social institutions. It is a concrete threat to democracy, which not only can, but will, pave the way for destructive political forces that benefit from societal and political distrust.

In the short term, we are likely to have a time of worry ahead of us. From some quarters, there is already speculation about a re-election, which thus takes place when voters or parties appeal an election result to the Electoral Review Board, which can then decide that the election must be redone. It is not an unreasonable guess that it will happen from one of the Tidö parties or from a Tidö voter, given the extremely even election results.

This is, if not the tip of the iceberg, at least a problem we can no longer turn a blind eye to.

There are many questions that need to be addressed. What do the regulations actually look like for our election processes? Where do they fail? How quickly can they be fixed? Is it reasonable to have a 5 percent barrier for the personal choice check box?

But above all, we must start talking on a broad front about how fragile Swedish society is, without either accusations of racism or racist attacks. We need to start looking for and dare to see the weak links in our trust-based culture, and make sure we protect ourselves going forward. Because this is, if not the tip of an iceberg, at least a problem we can no longer turn a blind eye to.

Various advocacy activities are already underway in Sweden and the rest of Europe. It doesn't take a great deal of empathy to see that a practically defenseless and fragile society like the Swedish one, whose democratic protection mechanisms are obviously lacking, will be exploited by a foreign power. The alleged election scandal in Borlänge shows with abundant clarity that we cannot take old truths or systems for granted. In the future, no one should be able to say "We didn't see it coming".