Sweden election 2022

[Oryxslayer]

I am still confused why the North votes SD, is it because of Sami voters, is it like Northern MN where it's more because of unions?

Northern and central Sweden is very industrial, so northern MN is the right idea. In the far north (Norbotten) you have a lot of mining for example.

It's also, not as rural as it might appear. Don't get me wrong, there a clearly very left-wing rural areas in the North, but if you look at Norbotten, the most left-wing region in the country, 37% of the population lives in the two major settlements of Luleå and Piteå at the coast.  

To add on to this, I hate to paint things with very broad brushes, but this is one case where such things apply. There are really only three reasons why people choose live in the earth's extremes - deserts, mountaintops, frozen wastes - if they have the opportunity to choose and live elsewhere:

1) Tradition. "My parents and their parents and their parents lived here and so shall I." Does not exclusively apply to native/indigenous/minority groups, though they are a large component. Abandoning community is a big ask, especially in a part of the world where such ties are strong. Usually votes left for identity, the necessity of local government access and services, or community related reasons.

2) Money. Usually obtained through resource extraction. Oil workers align right, miners usually left and pro-union. If transitory, where no single group of residents wants to be there for more than needed, against whatever will demand more of them than the contract asked.

3) Military. Self-explanatory and usually votes Right.

[Oryxslayer]

Some very specific questions to our Swedes:

1. Why is SD so strong in Dalarna compared to surrounding regions?
2. What's the deal with Gotland? Left-wing overperformance, SD weak, etc.
3. What would be a good explanation for SD's relative weakness in Västerbotten (also compared to Norrbotten)?

I'm afraid that I don't really have any good answers to these questions.

I have also wondered why SD does so poorly on Gotland, considering how well they do in other rural areas. If you find out, please tell me.

I mean C historically has strong ties and a loyal base on Gotland - them aligning with S this time partially explains the block's overperformance.

[Oryxslayer]

How likely is it that C switches sides under a new leader? This 1-seat majority depending on both left-Liberals and possible future ex-SD MPs is obviously not going to last very long.

Given how the party has reacted to the distribution of their results, losing their long tern rural voters but holding/gaining urban voters who likely were former Liberals & Moderates, a leader that's more pro-Blue Block doesn't seem too unlikely. Future parliamentary machinations though will determine if they do switch, what conditions would be applied in that situation, and what will be the relationship with SD.

[Oryxslayer]

Blue Block at the last moment has now a 2-seat lead even though the margin is 0.7% in their favor. This is contrasted with the 0.9% gap and 1 seat lead from before the mail votes, so geography of their vote got better.

[Oryxslayer]

For the long-term prospects Swedish politics, it's probably better to have a razor-thin right-wing coalition of chaos shambling around for a while, giving voter a chance to come back to their senses while minimizing the risk of far-right policies being enacted. Unfortunately, this isn't happening in a vacuum, and having a party that likely got funding and support to Putin (even if now they're posturing as pro-NATO) in government isn't exactly a great sign. Oof course there's a far bigger domino piece about to fall...

Isn't posturing as pro-NATO (and 'voting for admission' seems like much more than posturing) rather more than V is willing to do?

The is definitely a divide within the European Far Right parties these days when it comes to Putin. There are those who were happy to align with his rhetoric and use Russian funds when convenient because of enemy of my enemy, but then no longer saw any value in retaining it after the War in Ukraine made that position toxic. A bit like Brexit and said parties previous position on their own EU exit referendums. These parties and Russia both kinda saw each other as useful idiots to achieve their own goals, which have now diverged. Then on the other hand you have Far-Right parties who only more happy or unwilling to fully abandon Pro-Russia positions after the Invasion, because that is a key plank of who they are. AfD is the prime example of the latter, but this divide is one of the many divides presently playing out between Salvini and FdI.

[Oryxslayer]

You cannot do this meaningfully as those blocks are new. Until recently the arrangement was between a Socialist block (the SAP, V and the latterly the Greens) and what was always called the Bourgeois Block (M, C, KD, L). The SDs were at first a fringe party, and then a party with a substantial following with the status of parliamentary lepers.

You can’t even do a straight comparison to the 2018 election either. C and L were right wing parties that pointed to an M prime minister (but not if the SD were part of the majority). At 41% for SAP, V and MP, support for an SAP led government was clearly a minority opinion. With C de facto switching sides this year, 49% of people voted for parties that wanted an SAP led government. Really, this was in many respects a very good performance for the centre-left government, the problem being that they ‘shouldn’t’ have been in government in the first place.

No, the SAP bock won the 2018 election by whatever measure you use.

 They got one more seat over the Blue Block based on 2018 coalitions, not the same 1-seat margin they ended with. Based on the expectations at the time, this made them the winners. Since both blocks still observed the SD cordon, the common wisdom was such that whatever block came in first would have a minority government - or a majority one with support from the opposing camp. This obviously all changed after a few years of government.

If we are to measure by the 2022 coalitions then S+C+V+MP got 175 seats to the Blues and SD's 174. They got a combined 49.28% to 49.18% for the Blues, or 50.05% of votes for the parties that won seats. For comparison, the Blue's 2-seat margin this time was won with 49.58% to 48.9%, or 50.35% of votes for the parties that won seats.

[Oryxslayer]

I find it kind of hilarious that the party coming in 3rd now is about the win the premiership while the woman who came in a clear 1st will lose that position. And despite having gained votes for her party. Why is there not some form of grand coalition to keep SDs out of power?

Seems like a lot of standard conservative/center-right parties in Europe have become useful idiots for the far-right. I don't want to make parallels to the Third Reich here, but back then the conservatives also thought they could control the extreme right.

The danger of Block politics. Historically the strength of the Labor/Social Democratic/Socialist parties in Scandinavia meant that it was everyone against them. Block politics emerged so as to keep everyone else in line and prevent defections to support their collective enemy.

Two things have happened since then. The first is the decline of the dominant workers parties. This is just the decline of traditional socialization networks, the rise of the internet, and new generations wanting new issues - a process occurring in every system but most visible in PR ones. SAP in the old days for example was called a dominant Party of Power by Political Scientists, comparable to the Liberal Democrats in Japan. Change however has simply left them the biggest fish in the pond.

The second thing is more recent - the rise of anti-immigrant right. Block politics has proven woefully inadequate to combating this threat. Block politics means that once you are considered 'part' of the block, you are effectively recognized by all other members of the block. Said party acknowledges the  overall goals and leadership in exchange for getting their influence over the Blocks governments. This means that despite the system being PR, the alignment is of a duopoly, so all actions are effectively zero-sum.

Compare the AfD in Germany to the Sweden Democrats. Both parties have seen massive growth since 2010 and initially remained behind a electoral cordon. However, the zero-sum nature of Block politics meant that the collective agreement for one block to support the other via confidence and ignore the Sweden Democrats could not last. It started at the the local level but after 2018 the Blocks realigned so that the Sweden Democrats ended up inside the Blue Block. Meanwhile, in Germany, the AfD remains a pariah at all levels of government. The Union and FDP have better prospects individually maintaining the cordon rather then making a  Block with them, and so the AfD is ostracized.