The strange “census” announced by the right-wing government in …

The right-wing and far-right coalition that has governed Sweden since last October is trying to organize what it called "a new national census" because, as Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson and the leader of a party of far-right Jimmie Akesson, the country "no longer has control over its own population" due to "irresponsible immigration policies" by previous governments. As many Swedish newspapers and statisticians have pointed out, what has been announced will not be a census to count the population, but a measure with repressive intent: the ill-concealed objective would be to trace undocumented migrants in the country. In the parliamentary elections held in Sweden in September 2022, the second most voted party was that of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right formation directly descended from neo-Nazi groups.

Currently the Swedish government, led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of the Moderate party, is made up of a coalition of centre-right parties, which, however, in order to govern, needs the external and decisive support of the Swedish Democrats, who have a great influence on the of the executive. During the electoral campaign, the Swedish Democrats had built up a large chunk of their consensus by promising very severe policies on immigration and crime, often establishing a link between these two elements (a link that has never been proven by studies and analyzes on the two phenomena). Among other things, they had proposed the organization of systematic police operations that should have taken place at dawn in some "at risk" neighborhoods to try to find people present in the area without a valid residence permit and act accordingly. i.e. expel them.

For years, Sweden Democrats have thought that the country's official population numbers are incorrect. According to them, 100,000 people reside in Sweden without a residence permit, but these figures have not been confirmed by either the police or the Migration Office. The census issue was nonetheless factored into the coalition deal made soon after the 2022 election results between the Sweden Democrats and Prime Minister Kristersson's right-wing Moderates party.

Now the government has decided to follow up on that promise. On March 30, during a press conference, the Conservative Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson and the leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Akesson, announced what they called a "census", saying that, to carry it out, the government will give 500 million crowns (equal to approximately 44 million euros) to the Revenue Agency. They explained that the already existing population registers will be reorganised, improved and updated.

They also said that the Agency will have to identify "risk" areas in which to carry out targeted checks and explained that the Agency itself will be given greater powers to carry out these extensive checks on people's identities. Furthermore, the various authorities of the country that should become aware of persons not duly registered will have the obligation to report it to the Revenue Agency. In presenting their project, Svantesson and Akesson reiterated that "Sweden has largely lost control of its population due to an irresponsible immigration policy" which would have led, according to Akesson, to the creation of a "shadow society" whose the authorities "do not know the extent".

A few days earlier, the chairman of the Justice Committee of the Parliament Richard Jomshof, historical leader of the Swedish Democrats and a great supporter of the theory of "ethnic replacement", had in turn written on Twitter that "the Swedes are about to become a minority in their own country" . For Stockholm University demographer Gunnar Andersson, the very fact that the "hunting down of irregular migrants" is one of the declared objectives of what has been called a "census" shows that in reality a census will not be carried out: "It is not a matter of count the population, but of a repressive measure, to find those who should not be in Sweden and deport them". Anders Lindberg, columnist of the Aftonbladet newspaper, close to the centre-left, also explained very clearly that what has been announced will not be a census.

According to him, however, through this operation the government will not be able to obtain a mapping of the irregular presence in the area. Sweden's population registers and statistics "are among the best in the world," he says. Indeed, Sweden is a country that has an efficient population counting system.

From 1631 the Evangelical Lutheran Church began to keep detailed parish registers and in 1749 the Swedish Tabellverket was the first official statistical institute in the world. Since 1947 every person residing in Sweden has had a personnummer, a personal identification number similar to the tax code, issued by the Revenue Agency. Without these figures it is impossible to open a bank account or even just make a phone subscription.

By cross-referencing this number with the population registers that are periodically updated (the last time two years ago), it is then possible to retrieve a detailed picture of the country's inhabitants in just a few seconds. According to the Swedish Tax Agency itself, the information in these population registers is approximately 98 percent correct. For Lindberg, people who have deliberately chosen not to appear in the registers will be unlikely to be identified by the government with this new operation, and will therefore remain invisible.

The government will therefore not be able to do what it has announced: according to it, the real objective is another. What will happen is that "checks will be carried out in many vulnerable suburbs" and that the Swedes with foreign origins will end up at the center of the question: "Not because they don't have the right to be here, but because the Swedish Democrats want to underline that they do not belong to this place". The "census" will therefore have nothing to do with a question of statistics, it will be a "political marking".

It will serve to reaffirm .