In 2019, Paludan stood in Danish parliamentary elections, achieving only 1.8 percent of the vote. Under Denmark’s proportional representation system, parties must achieve at least two percent of the vote in order to enter the Danish parliament.

In Sweden, you must be a Swedish citizen in order to be elected to parliament. Paludan’s father is Swedish, and he applied for and was granted Swedish citizenship in 2020.

In order to enter the Swedish parliament, Paludan must win at least for percent of the vote in the upcoming election.

To put that in to perspective, current parliamentary parties the Liberals and the Green Party are currently polling under four percent, and are thereby at risk of losing their representatives in the Swedish Riksdag.

Paludan, who in recent days has been travelling around Sweden burning the Koran, the Muslim holy book, has described these visits as an “election tour”.

Over the Easter weekend, which coincided this year with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, he visited, or planned to visit, Linköping, Norrköping, Örebro, Landskrona, Malmö and the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby to hold “demonstrations”, setting fire to the Koran in order to provoke people living in these areas.

Paludan’s demonstrations resulted in riots involving vandalism and violence aimed primarily at police.

At least 40 people have been arrested or charged, many of whom were minors. In total, 26 police officers have been injured.