New Democracy

New Democracy (, NyD) was a political party in Sweden. It was founded in 1991 and elected into the Riksdag in the 1991 Swedish general election. It lost all its seats in the Riksdag in the subsequent election in 1994, and its subsequent decline culminated in bankruptcy in February 2000, at which time it retained only one city council post. Local factions of New Democracy reformed into minor parties such as Sjöbopartiet, which faced mixed success. New Democracy campaigned on an agenda of reform and restricted immigration, initially on economic rather than cultural grounds. Its economic policy, stressing the importance of entrepreneurship and deregulation, was generally perceived as right-wing. The party favored Swedish application for European Union membership, which was attained in 1995. It also called for wide-scale political reform, including cutting government departments, reducing the Riksdag to 151 members and electing Prime Minister by direct ballot. These years were the only time a right-wing populist party had been represented in the Riksdag until the election of members of the Sweden Democrats in September 2010. History