Swedish election 2010

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

These latest polls have all been very promising. The Social Democrats have completly crashed, and the Alliance is leading in some of the polls, and down by only by one or two points in some others.

The Moderates have been claiming for a long time now that the Red-Greens would start losing in the polls after they presented their budget, a prediction which has come through, so it really seems they know what they're doing. Overall I'm very opptimistic about our chances.

Still the most intresting thing I've seen must have been the poll that claimed around a quater of Social Democratic voters think Reinfeldt is a better PM than Sahlin would be. (Of course with her track record, who don't) 

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I've said for a long time that I believe the most likely result would be a tie in parliament between the left and right with the Sweden Democrats in the middle. To me it seems very unlikely they would not reech the required 4% this time around. But then I'm from Skåne so I guess I might be overestimating their chances. (I certainly hope so)

Question is what would happen if neither the Alliance nor the Red-Greens got a majority. Would the Greens cross the aisle and support a continued Reinfeldt premiership, or would one of the three minor Alliance parties back the Red-Green mess?

Personally I think we can rule out the Centre Party crossing the aisle. Olofsson has probably shown even more contempt for the Red-Greens than the Moderates, so I can't see her backing down and suddenly joining them. She better not, I'd leave the party instantly if it ever decided to support a Goverment in whith Lars Ohly is a major player.     

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

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Because Norwegian Centre Party =/= Swedish Centre Party.

Maud Olofsson has been going around latly saying that it would be one of the most devestating things ever to happen for Sweden to have Lars Ohly and his communist ilk enter goverment. She can't backpeddle on that without losing all credibility and half her party. And Sahlin can't form a coalition without the Left Party. 

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We happen to have the "bourgeois parties" in power right now. We also have one of the most stable economies in Europe, no defecit, and as far as I've been able to tell, order. But I'll be looking out for that chaos and soaring defecits. My guess is I'll find them in United Kingdom, Spain, and Greece, who either is run or was being ran by Social Democratic Labour parties.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

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Stockholm is the single most conservative area in Sweden, so obviously there will be no rioting there Now Malmö (Social Democratic stronghold) on the other hand...  

I've grown up in this Social Democratic advert and yet I'm unconvinced. Quite the opposite actually, if anything it has made me more right-wing than I would otherwise be. The fact that I'll have to give up most of my future income after years of hard work and education, so that my cousin who dropped out of school and is too lazy to keep a job never needs to lift a finger but can leech of the welfere system irks me. Nor am I sure the Swedish justice system or education system would be approved of that many people.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Sorry Al. Here you go. Polls for May.


Synovate:

Alliance: 48,3%

M: 31,8%
Kd: 4,6 %
Fp: 7,2%
C: 4,7 %

Red-Greens: 46,5%

S: 32,5%
Mp: 8,8%
V: 5,2%

Sd: 2,5%


Sifo:

Alliance: 46,2%

M: 30,9%
Kd:3,5%
Fp: 6,7%
C: 5,1%

Red-Greens: 49.3%

S: 34,3%
Mp: 10,7%
V: 4,3%

Sd: 3,5%


Novus:

Alliance:46,5%

M: 31,2%
Kd:4,1%
Fp: 6,3%
C: 4,9%

Red-Greens: 47,5%

S: 33,6%
Mp: 8,3%
V: 5,6%

Sd: 4,6%

Hashmite already posted Demoskop.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Why is Stockholm right wing? That seems odd.

Stockholm has some very wealthy upper-middleclass suburbs, like Danderyd, Nacka, Ekerö, Täby, Lidingö... as well as some very wealthy inner city areas like Östermalm, Kungsholmen, and Norrmalm that votes for the Moderate Party around 40-60% while the Social Democrats does 15-25% at best in those areas. Stockholm as a whole is actually a pretty wealthy city, and except a few poor suburbs in Botkyrka, and the city of Södertälje, there aren't really any poorer, left-wing areas in the whole of Stockholm County.

But Sweden is kind of opposite to almost all other countries in that way, since our urban areas is mostly right-wing, while the rural areas are strongly left wing.

I take it the Pirates are unlikely to cross the seat threshold as they did in the Euro elections?

No it doesn't look like it. Back during the Euro election, Swedish parliament had just passed several laws concerning file sharing and integrity, so that was a very hot topic at the time, and as basicly the only party against, the Pirates got a lot of attention in media which gave them a huge boost. The Euro elections also only have half the turn-out that the general election has, so in those elections the party base plays a much bigger role than in the general election, and since the Pirates has a lot of devoted members that were much more enthusiastic to go out and vote than most of the main parties that helped them a lot as well. Now in the general election, when the hot potato is the economy, there really isn't any room for them in the debate, so unless parliament decides to pass another set of anti-integrity laws before the election I don't really see them being able to get the support they did last year.

Funny fact though, counted in membership, the Pirates are Sweden's fourth biggest party beating Greens, Christian Democrats, People's Party, Left Party, and Sweden Democrats. 
     
   

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

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I partially agree with you here Gustaf, in that the suburbs are not the only reason Swedish cities are right-wing but it is still so that the wealthy villa suburbs around Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö are the most right-wing voting places in Sweden and important part of the Moderate Party's base.

Also "förort" really doesn't imply (or even mean) the same thing as the English "suburb". I don't think that anyone would use "förort" to describe Lidingö or Täby although these places are suburbs, while "förort" is constantly used for Rosengård in Malmö, although Rosengård is actually located in the inner-city area.   

Otherwise you do a fine job explaining Swedish politics. Although I'm still intrested to hear what you think about this:

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[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Is there any concern on the Alliance part that they could lose the election merely because the Center and Christian Democrats both just miss the 4% threshold?  Say support for the moderates grows, but grows too much so that the other parties are just weakened enough to win about 7% of the vote combined, but no seats.  Have any parties discussed lowering the threshold %?

There is indeed such a concern among some Alliance politicians and voters. Especially the Christian Democrats has been just above or under the 4% threshold in several polls the last year. There was a poll in 08 (or maybe it was 09) I remember that showed exactly that scenario. The Alliance won over the Red-Greens by 1%, but the Christian Democrats only got 3,8% so the Red-Greens would have won anyway. 

But no the idea of lowering the threshold has not been discussed. It might be suggested if a minor party falls out and ends up causing their coalition to lose when otherwise they would have won, but otherwise I'd dare say the 4% is pretty safe. (Remember the established parties also want to have the threshold remain high enough to keep the Sweden Democrats and Pirates out of Parliament)

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I just love Aftonbladet

The Red-Greens can't agree on anything, but that is of course alright, they're three different parties after all, they can't be expected to agree on all issues 100%. But when the Alliance parties have a disagreement on Labour laws, it's apperently WAR IN THE ALLIANCE.

Btw Gustaf, where did your friend Túrin go? I'd be intresting to have the oppinion of someone from the Swedish left here as well.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Like any city, Stockholm has its rich and poor areas. For example, Sodermalm was historically the "Brooklyn of Stockholm" and voted overwhelmingly for the left. It is now quite gentrified (like much of Brooklyn today too) - but still votes heavily for left-leaning parties.

Södermalm is indeed inner-city Stockholm's most left-leaning area, but it doesn't vote heavily for them any longer. I'm actually pretty sure the Alliance won there in 06, considering the constituency it's located in was won by the right 50,56% against 44,69%, but I might be wrong as that constituency also includes Enskede and Old Town Stockholm.

DL what exactly is your relation to Sweden? I'm curious as you seem to know a lot about us, and also know some Swedish. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

What do people think about my earlier comment about how the "bourgeois" parties have not fallen for the kind of populist socially conservative rhetoric that rightwing parties in other countries have adopted which tends to turn off urban voters.

I think that their base always beeing the city, has forced them to be more open minded than the right-wing parties in other countries. Since most of Moderate Party politicians has come from the cities, city ideals has formed their values.

Besides this is Sweden, we don't really have more than one really socially conservative area in the whole country, the South-Swedish Highland (Which votes heavily for the Christian Democrats). So adopting a populist socially conservative rethoric would never have been politicly sensible or benifitial for the Moderate Party, in difference to the US for example where moving to the right on social issues benefitted the Republicans since that helped them make huge gains in poor but socially conservative areas in for example the South. Moving to the right for the Moderates would never have had any such effects big enough to make it worth losing wealthy city areas.

Actually it appears that in 2002 when the Social Democrats won, they actually won much of Stockholm including the most inner-city areas. The areas the Moderate Heroes won look more suburban. So much of Stockholm is certainly competitive, even if the entire area voted Moderate Hero in 2006.

Some parts of Stockholm are indeed competive, although I'd still like to point out that 2002 was a low-point politicly for the right, and could argubly count as a minor Red-Green landslide. My city for example that has only been won three times by the left since 1976, went red-green in 02. So even if the red-greens will win in September I'd expect the Alliance to hold onto most of the Stockholm area.  

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

What do people think about my earlier comment about how the "bourgeois" parties have not fallen for the kind of populist socially conservative rhetoric that rightwing parties in other countries have adopted which tends to turn off urban voters.

If you look at the different parties in Scandinavia it isn't that strange. Both Norway and Denmark have rather large populist parties in the form of Dansk Folkeparti (Denmark) and Fremskrittspartiet. These have sort of monopolised the socially conservative populist vote in the two countries. Their core are often old working class voters that want big government and statism, but not multiculturalism, which is why they have abandoned the left.

Because of this, the more "Bourgeois" parties of the Centre-Right (Like Høyre in Norway) can avoid the sort of populism that turns off their core vote in the middle class.

Sweden is somehow different though, in the respect that they don't have a large party of the populist right.

The problem with that theory is that those voters didn't vote right-wing before, they voted left to a large extent.

The underlying factor is that Scandinavian countries are pretty homogenous and we don't really have much in the way of wedge issues. Politics here is very much class-based.

I know that Gustaf. I live in Scandinavia as well.

But the theory does describe the realignement that has taken place in Scandinavian politics (at least Denmark and Norway); where a large chunk of the old working class vote now belongs to the right.

What I don't understand though is how Fremskritt managed to become so big? I mean here in Sweden we sometimes joke about how dumb Norwegians are suppouse to be... but I refuse to believe that 22% of the population actually buy their crap about if we just get rid of immigrants and use more of our oil money, we can afford to both increase spending and lower taxes.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Well, the mainstream conservative party there is made of fail.

Btw, links to detailed electoral data are always welcome

Well since we've been disussing Stockholm.

Stockholm inner-city results from 06

Stockholm County's results 06 (- Stockholm's inner-city)

Stockholm inner-city 02

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I just discovered something horrefying. Fremskritt's leader is named Siv Jensen! That's my grandmother's name.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

But, no, not entire districts in the core of the city.

...which is the key point. London has always had large districts full, pretty much entirely, of poor people. It's actually one of the defining features of the city. It also has districts that combine large numbers of poor people (secure-ish in social housing) with large numbers of rich people in private housing of one kind or another; this is also one of the defining features of the city. If London did not have these things, then it would be a Tory bastion and then some. It also wouldn't be London.

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The key point is marginalisation and status as 'the other', rather than dubious 'racial' categories.

Yes, that was basically my point.

Although it should be pointed out that, e.g. Iranian immigrants are much more successful than many other groups but they still tend to identify as immigrants and be identified by native Swedes as such.

What about Chinese and Vitnamese immigrants? From my own experience they tend to be more successful than other groups of immigrants, and much more likely to be middleclass and live outside of the million-project suburbs. They also seem to be more accepted by the ethnic Swedish population.

The ones I personally know also tend to be voting much more to the right, compared to other immigrant friends who all vote Social Democrat, or Left Party.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Ugghh, the Novus poll would create exactly the deadlock scenario between the Red-Greens and the Alliance I described earlier. Still with the Moderates the biggest party, and the Alliance slightly bigger than the left, it would probably be possible to get the Greens support to continue the current goverment.

Noted that Peter Eriksson (Green leader for those not familiar with him) specificly stated during his interview on Korseld that the agreement between the Greens and the Social Democrats to work with eachother until 2020 wasn't valid any longer. (Backpaddle, backpaddle) So he seems open for another solution.

BTW, I'd like to apologize for my overtly hackish and partisan comments earlier on in this thread.
I got carried away a bit I'm afraid.

Don't worry about it. Happens to the best of us sometimes.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Right so SCB realeased their famous last oppinion poll today. Which shows the Red-Greens still maintain a slight advantage in that one. The SCB poll is famous since it has been correct in projecting the winner of every election since 1973. The Red-Greens are of course vivid about the results, as are Swedish news papers who're writing essays analysing the results.

Former Minister of Education and the Social Democrats Party Secretary Ibrahim Baylan, sounded a lot more confident today than he has in a long time, but still noted though, that the Social Democrats have a history of doing worse on election day in the SCB poll, and considering they only got 33% in the poll, that seems to be bad news for the party itself. (In 06 they got 40% in the SCB poll, and ended up with 36% on election night) He then went on to say the Social Democrats still aim at 40% (Lol, Baylan)

SCB poll, results

Red-Greens - 50,2%

S - 33,8%
Mp - 10,7%
V - 5,6%

Alliance - 44,2%

M - 29,2%
C - 4,6%
Kd - 4,5%
Fp - 5,8%

The Sweden Democrats barely fail to reach the 4% threshold with 3,9%, but I think they'd be able to get in anyway by breaking 12% in either Skåne West, or Skåne North & East.


If you ask me, I don't buy it. The poll shows a better result for the Red-Greens than any other (creditable) poll from the last two months. The People Party (Fp) result is too low as well. Although SCB has a history of underpolling the minor parties so the last one might not be that strange.

There's been a lot of fuzz around this poll, so much you could almost think it's the actual election result and not another poll. Still SCB's track record when it comes to the winner, is as I've mentioned spottless.
 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Well maybe transexuals that refuse to identify as either of the genders vote heavily for C and Kd thus bringing the national vote up

Anyway, the explanation here is clearly that the SCB poll is done over such a long period of time. The swing to the governement is more recent since it happened after the opposition presented their policy proposals.

Yeah I thought that might be the case. Also do you know why they have their last poll so early? It would have made more sense to have it in August. A lot of things can happen in four months.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

For anyone intrested in the results from the poll mentioned above:

Who do think would do a better job...

 ...representing Sweden abroad?

Reinfeldt: 68%
Sahlin 18%

 ...leading the country during a national crisis?

Reinfeldt: 62%
Sahlin: 20%

 ...comanding a majority in parliament in favour of their policies?

Reinfeldt: 55%
Sahlin: 26%

 ...inspire Sweden with hope for a better future?

Reinfeldt: 46%
Sahlin: 37%


If you'd ask me though, I'd say Sahlin is doing an amazing job as leader of the opposition. I wouldn't mind her continuing with that for another 4 or 8 years.

Maybe next time the Social Democrats will actually elect a leader based on merits, and not gender.

 

 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

On a totally different note, I'm curious about something. What would motive someone who lived in a city in Sweden to vote for the Centre party?My understanding is that they are largely an agrarian party that mainly acts as a lobby group for farmers and mostly pushes for bigger agricultural subsidies. So if you live in the middle of Stockholm why would you want that?

Guess that since I'm a person living in a relativly large city (21.000 inhabitans) as well as a Centre party voter, I'd presumebly be the right person to answer this question.

The sterotype of the Centre party as a "farmer" party lives on from the first half of the 20th century when the party was actually called the Farmer party and was a party only dedicated to promoting pro-farming legislation. During the 40's and 50's however the party actually started to develop a real ideology, similar to regular social liberalism, but slightly more to the left on economics. The idea that we're only a party for people living on the countryside, is something we've been trying to do something about since the 60's, but in our class-based voting society it has been proven very hard to erase our reputation.

As to your question, why I vote for them, and why I think other people should vote for them. The Centre party is very strongly in favour of decentralisation, and strongly promote local goverment, something I support very much myself. They're also big supporters of small-business owners, wanting to erase much of the byrochrasy and regulation, lower corporate taxes for smaller companies, and ease the Swedish Labour laws. Further they're the only party on the right that are against the Euro, and are most euroscheptic towards the EU. They've also been the most socially progressive party in Sweden, being the first party to have a female MP, a female leader, and an openly gay goverment minister. It was during the premiership of a Centre party leader female succession to the Swedish throne was established, and the Centre party was one of the first parties to support same-sex marriage and adoption.

I realize the Centre party also tries be sort of kind of environmentalist (even though farmers probably do more to destroy the environment than anyone!) and that they try to position themselves as kind of sort of "centrist" compared to the Moderaterna - but if you want environmentalism - why not vote Miljo party and if you want a wishy-washy centrist party to act as a brake on the Moderates - why not vote Folkpartiet?

I'm sure the bosses on BP will be glad to hear they aren't the worst at destroying the enviorment.

Folkpartiet (People's Party) are similar to Centre on many issues as they're both social liberal parties, but there are a number of issues were they are eachothers opposites. Fp is the most EU and Euro positive party in Swedish politics, C is as mentioned sceptic. Fp wants to increase use of nuclear-power, C wants to abolish it when there's a viable option. Fp wants more centralisation, C wants decentralisation.

Miljöpartiet (The Greens) are alright, they agree with C on many core issues, but they unfortunatley come with two awful defects, namly Socialdemocrats and Communists.

Tl;dr I know, but you asked.   

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Talking of Centre, what your signature ad means and do they believe it the "Scavinavian model", as we call it here?

"The Centre Party, because I believe in small business, local goverment, and a green and liberal Sweden."

And yes the Centre party believes in a mixed market economy.

So what exactly is so bad about the Social Democrats? They have governed Sweden for almost the entire 20th century and during that time they took what was one of the poorer countries in Europe and made into a country with just about the highest standard of in the world, they created a range of social programs that have been copied everywhere, they have been fiscally responsible, under them Sweden has often been the least affected during various other economic downturns, they have been progressive on a lot of foreign policy issues and under their stewardship Sweden has been one of the few countries in Europe which  has escape a rightwing populist upsurge of xenophobia against immigrants (look at the Progress party in Norway and the Danish peoples party to see what could have happened but did not in Sweden). I realize no party is perfect - but given how relatively "successful" a country Sweden has been in the last 80 years compared to just about every other country and considering that the SDs have run the country almost all the time - don't you think they should get some credit?

DL, I do give some credit to the Social Democrats for where Sweden is today. And I've said before (and I believe) that Per Albin Hansson was the best PM this country has ever had. But Sweden's economic success isn't only thanks to the Social Democrats. Mostly I would credit it to our neutrality during the war, which meant that after WWII when the rest of Europe was destroyed, Sweden had working factories and lots of wood, iron, and stone to export which gave us an unparalled economic growth for 15 years, and the Social Democrats happened to be in power at that time, but the growth would have happened even with a right-wing goverment.

As to your question, why the Social Democrats are so bad, there's more to politics than economy. And since Palme took over in the early 70's and decided to take his party in a more radical and ideological direction, as opposed to the more practical, moderate, down to earth politics of Erlander, and Hansson, the Social Democrats policis on school, justice, and welfere has destroyed our education system, made our legal-system laughable, and undermined and hurt the Swedish welfere system.

Btw, SD is usually the acronym used for the xenophobic Sweden Democrats, while the Social Democrats are known simply as S or SAP.         

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Some comments from Sweden Democrat supporters I've found today while browsing the interwbes. 

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That would be amusing considering the Sweden Democrats are royalists.

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...because the Greens and the Sweden Democrats have so much in common?

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... *no comment*

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

If the Sweden Democrats get into the Riksdag and hold the balance of power - would the Moderate/Centre/Liberal and Christian Democrats be willing to make a deal with those neo-Nazis in order to stay in power? What sort of policy concessions would they make to get the SDs to support them?

According to all four of the parties, no. There will be no deal between the Alliance and the Sweden Democrats.

The most likely result, as I see it, would be for Reinfeldt to stay in power (Sweden Democrats would probably not vote against him in a Vote of No Confidance as long as Sahlin is the alternative) and the goverment would then make an agreement on the budget with the Greens. All in all a very unstable parlamentery situation, which is why we shall hope that one of the sides get a majority in parliament.

 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

So new election very soon in other words.

Possibly, but holding elections outside of normal dates is highly unusual in Sweden (in fact, I can't recall it ever happening, at least not in the last 80 years or so).

It happened in 1958 when the coalition between the Centre Party and the Social Democrats ended and Erlander wasn't able to get enough support in the second chamber for his pension reform, but that's the only time in modern history.   

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Personally I believe the Moderates' gains among voters that used to vote for the minor bourgeois parties are partly due to the leaders. Reinfeldt, Borg, and Bildt, who act like the Moderate Party's face are all very charismatic, intelligent and likable persons, while the Christian Democrats' Göran Hägglund is increadibly dull, and the People Party's Björklund mostly comes of as harsh and unfriendly.

Olofsson used to be very well-liked (and managed to increase the support for the party during the two previous elections) but her fortunes have fallen, partly because she's been stuck with the unlucky job of running Swedish industry during a recession that hurt the Swedish industry hard, as well as increasingly starting to become a gaffle machine. The two other main faces of the Centre Party, Carlgren and Federley, are either unbelievebly dull or slightly crazy, something that doesn't help.

Compare to 2002 when the Moderates had the uncharismatic Bo Lundgren as leader, when they only got 16% of the vote and the People's Party nearly managed to beat them with 14%

The Moderate Party's move to the left, and the other bourgeois parties move to the right also affects things obviously though.

  

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

First June poll arrived today. Alliance with a slight advantage, but no majority as the Sweden Democrats get into parliament.

Alliance: 46,9

M: 31,8
Kd: 4,5%
Fp: 5,6%
C: 5,0

Red-Greens: 45,8%

Mp: 9,3%
S: 30,8%
V: 5,7%

Sweden Democrats: 5,7%