Vesna Prekopic: Peer pressure in Järva is of course a democratic problem

The reports and debates about electoral fraud and undue electoral influence in Borlänge and Järva in particular continue to occupy media space, and the criticism of the media's reporting has at times been harsh. In a DN column (9/10), Johannes Klenell calls Peter Wennblad's editorial in SvD, which addresses incident reports and testimonies about the impact, premeditated. But Klenell's own text could be accused of the same thing, since he doesn't seem particularly interested in bringing up things that suggest looking more closely at what happened in Järva.

Klenell does write: "Social pressure within groups and congregations seems to have occurred" but adds: "most give concrete reasons for how they voted. Concern about racism, the rents, jobs, welfare. For that they are punished with a declaration of incompetence."

It is true that there are reasons why V and S have made exceptional progress, but there are other reasons as well. It's a shame that he doesn't mention the SR report "Rinkeby residents on why the Left Party has grown strongly: "We have the same enemy" (7/10), published two days before his column, by Katarina Gunnarsson and Anna Hellers. There they talk to the people in Rinkeby, not just about them, and they give a picture that partly confirms Wennblad's text. Even if outright election fraud did not occur, voters were forced to vote for certain parties by local authorities.

Is that a problem then? When the writer Qaisar Mahmood tackles the subject (DN 28/9), he believes that "the indignation of politicians and editorial writers applies to something greater than a few hundred ticks. It applies if voters with a foreign background have gathered their crosses around someone with the same origin, and succeeded." No, it's not about voters gathering their crosses in one direction but why they do it. The question is whether it happened of their own free will or whether they have been forced by someone else's will.

Although there has not been regular electoral fraud, voters have been forced to vote for certain parties by local authorities.

"We are a people who stick together," says Hassan, who is interviewed in Rinkeby square by Gunnarsson, and explains that the Somali group in Rinkeby is good at mobilizing and talking together, in the associations, in the square and in the mosque. As they did to lift the party Nyans last election, he says.

And then Somali Sarah is interviewed, who herself tells about peer pressure and that she is more controlled by the men in Rinkeby than in her home country. "Sometimes it doesn't feel like I live in Sweden, but in Africa." she says.

It's not illegal to try to influence people to vote for a certain party or candidate, that's what an election campaign is for. But this is about social peer pressure, which in practice makes it difficult to dare to stand up to authorities and choose for yourself. It is, of course, a huge democratic problem.

Voices like Sarah's need to be heard more, instead of disappearing or being diminished in the shift in focus that occurs when opinion leaders engage in ideological positioning. Thankfully, there are reports like Gunnarsson's and Heller's, where the people affected by the issue get to have their say. Then it's up to the rest of us to listen to them.