Refugee controversy in Sjöbo

The refugee controversy in Sjöbo, Sweden, refers to the surrounding events of the 1988 referendum that banned Sjöbo Municipality from admitting foreign refugees. In 1987, despite opposition and demonstrations, local Centre Party politician Sven-Olle Olsson (1929–2005), who was Sjöbo's municipal commissioner at the time, was successful in gaining the support of the Sjöbo municipal assembly to hold a referendum to decide if Sjöbo should ban the acceptance of foreign refugees. The controversial referendum passed with a 67.4% majority for the ban in 1988, gaining Olsson and Sjöbo much publicity in the Swedish media. The outcome was heavily criticized by Swedish media and politicians (including then-Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson).

Olsson was in turn expelled from the Centre Party following the referendum which led to the forming of the nationalist Sjöbo Party (Swedish: Sjöbopartiet) in March 1991. In the municipal elections the same year, the party received 31% of the votes. This led to Olsson once again becoming Municipal Commissioner, a position he held until 1998, when his party's support was reduced to 15% in municipal elections. Following the Sjöbo party's loss of support, the ban was overturned by Sjöbo's municipal assembly, and Sjöbo accepted its first refugees for more than a decade in 2001.

In 1977, while a member of the Centre Party, Sven-Olle Olsson, a former farmer, was elected as Sjöbo's Municipal commissioner.The Centre Party in Sjöbo, led by Olsson, motioned before Sjöbo's municipal assembly in June 1987 for a referendum on the acceptance of foreign refugees in the municipality. The motion came after a proposal that fifteen refugees be accepted into the municipality, an idea Olsson disliked. It has been speculated that the reason behind the motion was not these fifteen refugees, a small number for the municipality, but, instead, Olsson's idea to create a protest against Sweden's positive stance on refugees. Despite heavy protests from most of the country, Sjöbo's municipal assembly decided in October 1987 to go through with the referendum in 1988. If the referendum passed, it would completely ban Sjöbo from accepting foreign refugees.

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