Swedish election, 2018: Political Impasse, Löfven loses confidence vote

[eric82oslo]

My updated prediction (tough race for 1st between S and SD):

22.6% Social Democrats (-8.4%)
22.4% Sweden Democrats (+9.5%)
17.5% Moderates (-5.8%)
11.0% Left (+5.3%)
 9.3% Centre (+3.2%)
 5.5% Christian Democrats (+0.9%)
 5.4% Liberals (n.c.)
 4.2% Greens (-2.7%)
 1.1% Feminist Initiative (-2.0%)
 1.0% Others (n.c.)

Turnout: 85.2% (-0.6%)

I'm generally agreeing, except with Left (will get less, too many spurous youth/student votes who don't vote at a high rate, the Norwegian Left party has plummeted on election day in almost every election for the past decade or longer) and with Moderates and Christian Democrats (will get more, because their voters are older and more affluent and always turn out at a super high rate, especially the super rich businness men of Moderates).

Compared to polls, I expect the biggest bumps to go to Sweden Democrats and then Moderates, while the biggest losers should be The Greens and then Left Party. That is always the case in Norway and our two countries are very similar after all. Although with some major differences too, which I've always found very fascinating. I've always felt more Swedish than Norwegian culturally and politically, though I'm 100% Norwegian genetically and a mix between Eastern and Western Norwegian, a big fault line in Norway both culturally, politically and geographically. Lol.

Turnout will be no more than 84% at most, very possibly lower. In Norway it's usually 76-78% and shrinking with almost every election.

[eric82oslo]

Early voting:

2.75 million people have voted early vs. 2.67 million in 2014 and 2.38 million in 2010.

7.49 million people are eligible to vote vs. 7.33 million in 2014 and 7.12 million in 2010.

This clearly indicates to me that turnout will be lower this year. Early voting has hardly increased at all. There have been instances even when early voting has increased a lot, where the final turnout tally has decreased in the end. Also, because of the huge increase in the support for SD, there's not really any viable majority government in sight this time around, which could further suppress turnout. And there's just no way that any of the left parties will cooperate with SD at all, which means it's a foregone conclusion that the right side of the spectrum will win the election overwhelmingly (Alliance + SD), with something like a 15-20% margin over the three left parties.

[eric82oslo]

And there's just no way that any of the left parties will cooperate with SD at all, which means it's a foregone conclusion that the right side of the spectrum will win the election overwhelmingly (Alliance + SD), with something like a 15-20% margin over the three left parties.

Well, that's nothing new. Alliance + SD had a comfortable majority in 2014 too, but the Alliance still decided to squander it and allow the Red-Greens to completely ravage the country because of the SD scare. I suppose M won't allow this to happen again (never underestimate the center-right's lack of a backbone though), but an S-led government still seems like a real possibility to me. If the Red-Greens become bigger than the Alliance and S has something like a 5-point lead over M, which are both extremely likely, S may want to take the initiative to form a government.

Even if S does become the largest party, it will be really hard for them to claim legitimacy in order to form a government when their share of the vote will be the lowest they've registered in the ballot box since at least 1911, possible even further back than that.

My preferred government would be a majority one involving the three left parties plus liberal Folkpartiet, plus I guess either Centern or KD, though I really wouldn't mind a big coalition one in the spirit of Germany and The Netherlands involving Social Democrats and the Moderates, as long as the Moderate Party doesn't become the largest one. As we know from Norway and almost all other countries in the world, a modern day government lead by a conservative party means extreme slashing of taxes for the rich and as a result an enormous increase in the gap between rich and poor in the population overall. Basically a crime against humanity if you ask me, and a completely irresponsible policy idea.

[eric82oslo]

The jokes about an S&M government write themselves. It is the Swedish people who will be hurt.

LOL, in what way? I realize that the two parties are way too far away from each other, especially on economic policy, that there's even a 1% chance of that to happen after this election, but at least it would create some kind of a semi stable government, something Sweden has been lacking recently. Swedish politics has been a complete chaos for the last decade or so. Chaos doesn't benefit anyone in my opinion, and it makes protest parties like SD so much stronger and more forceful as a result. (I realize you are a super strong supporter of SD, sadly. You can want a decrease in the number of newly arrived immigrants without having to destort into voting for a party with such a blatantly racist past, and even present with all the exclusions still going on till this day. I believe Moderates and KD have said they want fewer (new) immigrants and even the current S prime minister has been saying similar things. I believe it's a thing that is naturally going to happen no matter who ends up leading the government in the end.)

[eric82oslo]

Btw, "Radio Sweden" has a few interesting English language contents such as the "Political Compass" where you can find out which party you are closest to:

https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6981866

And interviews in English with each party leader:

https://sverigesradio.se/sida/gruppsida.aspx?programid=2054&grupp=27436

My results:

MP: 71%
FI: 69%
V: 67%
S: 59%
L: 46%
C: 44%
KD: 38%
M: 37%
SD: 25%

Sounds almost 100% correct to me. I'm genuinely surprised that C scores so high and L so low though, but I realize that the Norwegian counterparts to these parties are quite different. Swedish C is much more moderate and less agrarian than the Norwegian one, while I suspect Swedish Liberals to be quite a bit to the right of the Norwegian one, even if even the Norwegian Liberals have been moving to the right for the last decade or two and now even is a part of our really quite far-right government. I always score really high with the Norwegian Liberals in Norwegian compasses, mostly because they value the environment higher than almost any other party, but also because they're the only right side party to truely value multiculturalism and all the good sides brought on by immigration, which is not often valued in political discussions sadly, since politics in its rawest sense is about fixing problems, not valuing all the positive aspects of one's culture.

[eric82oslo]

And there's just no way that any of the left parties will cooperate with SD at all, which means it's a foregone conclusion that the right side of the spectrum will win the election overwhelmingly (Alliance + SD), with something like a 15-20% margin over the three left parties.

Well, that's nothing new. Alliance + SD had a comfortable majority in 2014 too, but the Alliance still decided to squander it and allow the Red-Greens to completely ravage the country because of the SD scare. I suppose M won't allow this to happen again (never underestimate the center-right's lack of a backbone though), but an S-led government still seems like a real possibility to me. If the Red-Greens become bigger than the Alliance and S has something like a 5-point lead over M, which are both extremely likely, S may want to take the initiative to form a government.

Even if S does become the largest party, it will be really hard for them to claim legitimacy in order to form a government when their share of the vote will be the lowest they've registered in the ballot box since at least 1911, possible even further back than that.

My preferred government would be a majority one involving the three left parties plus liberal Folkpartiet, plus I guess either Centern or KD, though I really wouldn't mind a big coalition one in the spirit of Germany and The Netherlands involving Social Democrats and the Moderates, as long as the Moderate Party doesn't become the largest one. As we know from Norway and almost all other countries in the world, a modern day government lead by a conservative party means extreme slashing of taxes for the rich and as a result an enormous increase in the gap between rich and poor in the population overall. Basically a crime against humanity if you ask me, and a completely irresponsible policy idea.

Holocaust, tax cuts. Tomayto tomahto.

Why are you bringing up holocaust? What on earth? How does that have anything to do with what I wrote?

[eric82oslo]

The jokes about an S&M government write themselves. It is the Swedish people who will be hurt.

LOL, in what way? I realize that the two parties are way too far away from each other, especially on economic policy, that there's even a 1% chance of that to happen after this election, but at least it would create some kind of a semi stable government, something Sweden has been lacking recently. Swedish politics has been a complete chaos for the last decade or so. Chaos doesn't benefit anyone in my opinion, and it makes protest parties like SD so much stronger and more forceful as a result. (I realize you are a super strong supporter of SD, sadly. You can want a decrease in the number of newly arrived immigrants without having to destort into voting for a party with such a blatantly racist past, and even present with all the exclusions still going on till this day. I believe Moderates and KD have said they want fewer (new) immigrants and even the current S prime minister has been saying similar things. I believe it's a thing that is naturally going to happen no matter who ends up leading the government in the end.)

Well,
I think SD is going to deport a lot of migrants if they come to power, so there is a difference in terms of policies.
Additionnally, a M-SD govt isn't going to stop the rise of the SD, it's better them to join a rightwing government with vague measures to appease the psychological  phobias of their electors rather than ending up in a situation they will continue to rise.

You mean an M+S government. It's confusing even to me, as both parties in theory could be shortened to SD.

[eric82oslo]

And there's just no way that any of the left parties will cooperate with SD at all, which means it's a foregone conclusion that the right side of the spectrum will win the election overwhelmingly (Alliance + SD), with something like a 15-20% margin over the three left parties.

Well, that's nothing new. Alliance + SD had a comfortable majority in 2014 too, but the Alliance still decided to squander it and allow the Red-Greens to completely ravage the country because of the SD scare. I suppose M won't allow this to happen again (never underestimate the center-right's lack of a backbone though), but an S-led government still seems like a real possibility to me. If the Red-Greens become bigger than the Alliance and S has something like a 5-point lead over M, which are both extremely likely, S may want to take the initiative to form a government.

Even if S does become the largest party, it will be really hard for them to claim legitimacy in order to form a government when their share of the vote will be the lowest they've registered in the ballot box since at least 1911, possible even further back than that.

My preferred government would be a majority one involving the three left parties plus liberal Folkpartiet, plus I guess either Centern or KD, though I really wouldn't mind a big coalition one in the spirit of Germany and The Netherlands involving Social Democrats and the Moderates, as long as the Moderate Party doesn't become the largest one. As we know from Norway and almost all other countries in the world, a modern day government lead by a conservative party means extreme slashing of taxes for the rich and as a result an enormous increase in the gap between rich and poor in the population overall. Basically a crime against humanity if you ask me, and a completely irresponsible policy idea.

Holocaust, tax cuts. Tomayto tomahto.

Why are you bringing up holocaust? What on earth? How does that have anything to do with what I wrote?

You called tax cuts for the rich a crime against humanity. The holocaust is a crime against humanity. Putting tax cuts in the same category as state sponsored genocide is a hyperbolic farce.

It depends on the size of the tax cuts. Unless you live in the US, tax cuts do not come alone, as politicians in most other countries are reasonably responsible and don't want to create too much of a deficit. That means, in most cases, cutting drastically in welfare programmes and help to the poor, which means poverty rising quite significantly. That's what I meant with crimes against humanity, not the tax cuts themselves. I'm sure that Bernie Sanders would not disagree with my assertion, and I think quite a lot of people, especially the poor, think and believe the same way. I believe the world has two main, existential challenges going forward over the next century or so. One is quite obvious one, dealing with the environment (plastic pollution, global warming, deforestation, desertification and overpopulation being the main threats) and the other one is the unspeakable, ludicrous income inequality in the world today, both between countries and within countries. Both are major crimes against humanity in my opinion. You and others are free to disagree.

Both of these major threats are the main culprits for creating refugees in today's world and both can very easily, and even likely, lead to war. Many scientists have for decades warned that water shortages in parts of the world, especially in the Middle East and Africa, could one day lead to a major regional war. This is just one of tens if not hundreds of examples of consequences from these two threats that could potentially lead to a war breaking out. If not wars are crimes against humanity, then certainly nothing is.

(Btw, it was not the tax cuts, but the income inequality that I meant was the crime against humanity. I guess I wasn't clear enough about that.)

[eric82oslo]

As a leftist I do believe the wealthy should pay more in taxation, however, we've seen in France during Hollande (75% Tax) how some wealthy french families left France to Belgium, London and Switzerland.
The french treasury lost a lot of revenue as a result..

Unfortunately greed is what motivates some people, Adam Smith talked about it, he praised greed at the beginning of his writings he was later horrified when he saw the enslavement of people and cruel nature of humankind in the Carribbean and Virginia.

I believe the wealthy should pay more, but we also saw time after time when taxes are so high wealthy people would move to another country...

I agree, and I believe there are three ways to remedy this. Either by raising taxes on the rich incrementially and over a period of time, instead of doubling them one day to the next for instance. Another way is to raise taxes on luxury items, everything from cars and flights to certain types of unhealthy and environmentally-hostile meat. A third is to work across borders, to strife for a more supranational world. EU has started the process of harmonizing taxes already I believe, let's hope they'll have some success with it. Preferably you should do all three at the same time.

[eric82oslo]

How long the voting will last and are there any websites who shows results live?

Yes, that is much more interesting than a discussion on who is a crypto-antisemite.  Anyway I think exit polls come out at 2PM EST.

I found this line to results
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/wEGeKP

Hopefully
https://www.svt.se/

will have live stream

There's a live stream you can follow here: https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/valg-i-sverige-1.11200732

[eric82oslo]

Actually, probably a bit late to be saying this. But it's interesting that most people seem to have predicted SD getting something in the low 20s, when that is pretty much the only score the pollsters haven't been predicting.

Mostly, the phone ones have had them in the high teens; while YouGov and Senitio have had them around 25%. So you might have though that 20-22% would be the one score SD don't get.

I think that is more about SD over-performed their pre-election polls in 2014 by around 2.5% so if you add in that amount to SD's average polling last couple of days you get the low 20s.

I think SD will get between 20% and 25%. I think there's about a 40% chance that they'll become the biggest party.

[eric82oslo]

How long the voting will last and are there any websites who shows results live?

Yes, that is much more interesting than a discussion on who is a crypto-antisemite.  Anyway I think exit polls come out at 2PM EST.

I found this line to results
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/wEGeKP

Hopefully
https://www.svt.se/

will have live stream

There's a live stream you can follow here: https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/valg-i-sverige-1.11200732

Why the hell Norwegian tv streams Swedish tv?

Cause we're crazy about Sweden, we even have a joint talk show which has run in both countries for more than ten years now, and before that for about ten years in Norway only hehe. We used to be one country until 1905, we have the same viking heritage, our languages are just slight variations of each other, our cultures are very similar. Also, until we found oil in the 1970s, Norwegians considered themselves Sweden's little brothers and most Norwegians loved watching Swedish TV, including children's programming. It was almost as popular as our own programming. Today of course, Sweden has become our little brothers in many respects, at least economically. As a result, Swedes have poured into our country during the past 15-20 years. Besides Poles, Swedes are our biggest immigrant work force due to our wages being 40% higher and our unemployment almost only half of that in Sweden.

PS: This is only a live stream for the election day broadcast, so it happens at most one day every four years hehe. I'm not sure if this is the first election day live stream or if they've done it for previous elections as well.

[eric82oslo]

The level of analysis in this thread through the campaign has been really low - everyone insisting that whatever they wish to be so is an iron rule, when the reality is that things are quite uncertain. There are a lot of variables, there is a lot of information we don't have and the precedents to make assumptions on aren't fantastic. Would be nice if people were to raise their games slightly when the actual results come in.

What exactly are you getting at here? Can you be more specific?

[eric82oslo]

Note that in 2014, the exit polls were not correct: just like the pre-election polls, they underestimated the SD by about 3%.

So, it's better to wait for the real results that are coming in instead of hyping the exit polls.

You would think the exit pollsters might have learned a lesson from 2014 and adjusted their methodology.  In fact if they did there is as much risk they over-adjusted for the shy SD effect.  

I don't think there's a tradition among Scandinavian pollsters to adjust their methodology after elections in order to adjust to the election outcome, like it has been in the US and to a lesser extent perhaps in the UK. One reason might be because pollsters' predictions in Denmark, Sweden and Norway traditionally have been surprisingly accurate, although there always are a couple of parties whose support is off with a couple of percentage points or so. It's usually within 3 percentage points of where pollsters end up landing though.

This time however, we have seen a record high difference when it comes to internet polls such a YouGov and more traditional phone pollsters, especially regarding SD (where the difference has been up to 9-10% at most), but also to a large degree with S and M. So perhaps things will change after this election, if YouGov's numbers will come really close to the actual results.

[eric82oslo]

Sweden Democrats leader Åkesson receives death threat: party

https://www.thelocal.se/20180908/sweden-democrats-leader-kesson-receives-death-threat-party

This seems to be from Islamic State



The letter reads

‘We will behead you if you do not withdraw from the election by the end of this week"

Perhaps IS is working secretly with SD ?  This will only push up the SD vote.

This could very well be fake, even produced within SD itself. Another and likely possibility is that it's genuine, as it has been obvious more or less since IS was created that there's nothing else they'd rather want than a clash or war between sivilisations, as that will only increase the support for IS. It's in both IS and SD's own interests to heighten this conflict, sadly. It's a win-win for both, and thus a loss for everyone else, the huge silent majority. Honestly, the media should not be reporting on this, just like satellite channels should not have live-streamed every single Trump rally during the 2015 an 2016 election campaign like they did. If we don't want a tabloid society based on fake stories and made up controversies, we should find a way to reduce this kind of journalism, even through laws if that becomes the only viable solution in the end. Even freedom of speech should have limits when it comes to hate rhetoric and hate propaganda. In this case, the hate propanganda is either a joint effort from both SD and IS, or, just as likely, if not more, a hoax perpetrated by SD alone in order to gin up anger and get their voters to the polls.

[eric82oslo]

Early voting data:

Until the moment, 2,726,338 voters cast an early ballot. The number could still increase. Here's the early votes numbers by district and compared with 2014:

We can see from these numbers that early voting is up strongly where SD has traditionally had the most support, particularily in Skåne, while surprisingly it has substantially decreased in the regions where SD has had almost no support at all, mainly in the north of Sweden. This should be a huge worrying and warning sign for everyone who doesn't want SD to have a huge election night. If election day voting will look even remotely like this, I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that SD will become the largest party. However that is a big if of course.

[eric82oslo]

We used to be one country until 1905, we have the same viking heritage, our languages are just slight variations of each other, our cultures are very similar.

Racist.

What?

Do you know anything about Norway and Sweden in order to have an opinion? The question from the Polish user was why on earth Norway would live-stream the election coverage of another national broadcaster. I tried to give him a qualified reasoning for why that would be the case, as even I find it slightly odd and certainly a novelty. How does that make me a racist? If I'm such a racist, why would I have spent my entire life to fight racism?

[eric82oslo]

We used to be one country until 1905, we have the same viking heritage, our languages are just slight variations of each other, our cultures are very similar.

Racist.

What?

Your exclusionary language discriminates against millions of Swedes and Nords who have no Viking heritage and do not partake in the native culture.

The question was what made Sweden and Norway so close that we would live-stream a foreign broadcaster. To ignore the common history of more than a 1,000 years then makes no sense.

[eric82oslo]

Do we have any info yet on how people voted on election day versus those who voted ahead of time?

[eric82oslo]

6. Sweden has no farmers anymore. C does have a fair number of rural voters but also a lot of urban liberals. And the sort of rural people who vote C aren't that conservative.

7. Geographical patterns are a Little complex, but Al is broadly right on Northern Sweden. Skåne has its own somewhat un-Swedish Dynamics and traditions and also a lot of immigration.

You mean, you do have farmers, but they're like 1-2% of the population or something.

Skåne is culturally more similar to Denmark than Sweden I think, also historically and linguistically.

[eric82oslo]

The map posted above is interesting. Basically, Stockholm and Malmo suburbs are conservative, while Malmo exurbs are far right.

I assume Stockholm suburbs are conservative for the same economic reasons suburbs everywhere are (Clinton's campaign strategy notwithstanding), but can somebody say why the Malmo area is so conservative? Do lots of immigrants come via Denmark and settle there? Also, are there many native Swedes/Danes who routinely cross the border there as part of daily life?

https://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/category/countries/s/sweden


If you go back and check older results, Skane has always voted to the right of the country even when the left bloc was more popular in the past. Plus the immigration issue with Malmo becoming heavily settled by immigrants was what made the exurbs turn to the SD.



Also if you look at Sweden in this map, the exurbs of Malmo have lower wealth than that of the Stockholm metro. The conservative bloc tends to do better in areas of Sweden with higher wealth.

I already told ya, but who would care to listen to an idiot like me right?

[eric82oslo]

6. Sweden has no farmers anymore. C does have a fair number of rural voters but also a lot of urban liberals. And the sort of rural people who vote C aren't that conservative.

7. Geographical patterns are a Little complex, but Al is broadly right on Northern Sweden. Skåne has its own somewhat un-Swedish Dynamics and traditions and also a lot of immigration.

You mean, you do have farmers, but they're like 1-2% of the population or something.

Skåne is culturally more similar to Denmark than Sweden I think, also historically and linguistically.

They have no  farmers in Stockholm (besides some nobility perhaps). Eastern Scania has also some non-conformist tendencies. Some of the old KD regions have turned to SD.

Yeah, on Djurgården (which literally means The Animal Farm), a famous island in the Stockholm archipelago, there's at least one farm.