Finally! Some good political news this weekend. Whilst UKIP were busy making terrifying waves in the European election, Sweden was busy voting in the first ever MEP from a feminist party.
Soraya Post, a 57 year-old member of the Sweden Feminist Initiative party, received 5.3% of the vote in Sweden's European elections. The win is an indication of just how far the small party has come in the last few years – in 2010, they polled only 0.4% of the vote in the country’s general election.
In a recent interview with New York magazine, Post was clear that she wanted to stand against the rise of the far right which has begun to creep into European politics recently. Indeed, the Feminist Initiative’s slogan for their campaign was ‘replace the racists with feminists!’ – an idea that we could certainly get behind.
‘The real right-wing Nazi, fascist parties are growing very fast in Europe. For me, it is a great honour to represent the feminist party,’ Post told the magazine. ‘We have been very, very clear as the force against racists and fascists in Europe. We want to change the agenda [in the European Parliament] to be gender-equal at all levels.’
Post its not only a feminist, but also a human rights activist. She's Sweden’s first Roma MEP and it’s clear such matters are close to her heart. ‘Our priority is that feminist perspective increases in all these political areas, including the budget, and we want to develop the democracy in a way that is based and grounded in human rights,' she's said.
What with UKIP’s success, coupled with the fact that France’s National Front topped the poll for the first time in over 40 years, it’s nice to have some good news – a glimmer of hope in what has been a pretty depressing weekend for European politics.
Follow Lucy Draper on Twitter @Draper Lucy
Picutre: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.