A junior partner in a Swedish coalition government is moving to cut the Indigenous Sámi peoples' rights to reindeer husbandry in favour of opening up their territory to greater mineral exploitation.
The political rhetoric has put the spotlight on anti-Sámi sentiment in the run-up to national general elections to be held across the country on September 13.
The polls will determine the parliamentary balance for the 349 seats in the Riksdag, Sweden's unicameral national legislature, while also electing representatives at the regional and municipal levels.
Åsa Larsson Blind, the vice-president of the country's Saami Council, has been forced to defend its Gabna sameby community, who fear their traditional herding routes will be sacrificed as the far-right Christian Democrats party attack the Sámi rights to graze reindeers on their ancestral lands.
Ms Larsson Blind said the scaremongering was not new, but that the scope of the latest rhetoric was "quite astonishing".
Sweden Deputy Prime Minister and energy minister, Ebba Busch, the leader of the Christian Democrats, said at an election press conference that reindeer husbandry, which is the raising, caring and managing the subarctic, semi-domesticated deer species "is an industry that affects very large areas but has limited economic significance".
She added the practice was no longer considered in the "national interest" and for the state to "reclaim responsibility" of the land used by herders.
"If you look at it from afar, it means that the deputy Prime Minister is highlighting one group of people ... as being the enemy of development in Sweden," Ms Larsson Blind replied this week.
"She is really clearly not feeling the need to have the support of the Sámi."
The Saami Council, one of three parliaments which represents Europe's only Indigenous people which extends to Finland and Norway and exists to safeguard the interests of the Sámi, are forced to helplessly sit idle to the outcome of the polls.
While its Indigenous constituents will vote like other Swedish citizens, the Saami Council and its representatives have limited formal power and Sámi representation has no formal bloc of votes or reserved seats in the Riksdag.
The other far-right party, Sweden Democrats, who could enter government for the first time after the elections on Sunday have also singled out the reindeer herders in its manifesto, pitting them against industrial development, tourism, and the wider Swedish public over Sámi land rights.
But the other focus of the row has centred on a state-owned mining company's plan to expand a vast iron ore mine, which is the continent's largest known reserve of rare earth elements.
Many Sámi people near Sweden's most northernmost town, Kiruna, fear pitting mineral resources against land rights heralds a threat to their livelihoods and culture.
It's why the Sámi argue they are rightly the Indigenous constitutional protectors.
Ms Larsson Blind said the incumbent government, formed from three conservative parties, has failed to take its responsibilities to protect Sámi rights seriously, even considering for other public interests.
"It has really opened up a divide that is very hard to overcome," she said.
