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People's Power Gone Wrong? 'Democratic' Sweden Slams Referendums

© Sputnik / Alexey Filippov / Go to the mediabankUnited Kingdom European Union membership referendum
United Kingdom European Union membership referendum - Sputnik International
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The United Kingdom's decision to turn its back on the EU has left Sweden ill at ease, without a major partner and a key ally. After Brits clearly voted "wrong" in last week's referendum on the EU membership, major Swedish newspapers started questioning the very idea of letting people decide over political matters.

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On Wednesday, an unsigned editorial in Sweden's largest daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter called referendums "problem-laden" and stated it was best to allow politicians decide instead of asking for people's opinions.

"To appeal directly to voters is particularly problematic in this kind of constitutional issues concerning these fundamental rights and sovereignty," the newspaper wrote. According to Dagens Nyheter, a democratic government requires not only a majority rule, but also protection of minorities.

"Referendums may actually clash with representative democracy. It is often difficult to interpret what people voted for, especially in relation to the voters' judgment in parliamentary elections. And referendums are particularly precarious in the constitutional affairs, where they are most often used," the newspaper wrote, calling the Tory Party "dysfunctional."

Dagens Nyheter's chief editor Peter Wolodarski went one step further and ventured calling British Prime Minister David Cameron a "zero" on account that Cameron had allowed the British referendum on EU membership at all.

"David Cameron thought he would secure his place in history as a political genius by declaring a referendum on the EU, which he intended to win. Cameron, will indeed be remembered forever, but mostly as a zero," Wolodarski wrote.

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In the major economic newspaper Dagens Industri, political editor PM Nilsson started a debate by stating that "democracy is greater than the power of the people," in which he later arrived at the blunt conclusion the UK referendum clearly showed that "the democratic aspirations of the international cooperation such as the EU should be reduced." According to Nilsson, such a conclusion is not as undemocratic as one might think.

"At present, the key question should not be how people could get more power from the EU, but rather how to protect the EU, together with its member states, from such expressions of people's power," PM Nilsson wrote.

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