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

[Gustaf]

Ok, lots to respond to here:

1. Personally, I ticket split across all elections but voted Liberal nationally in the end. Was very torn though and decided on election day.

2. Again, since the Alliance won't do December deals anymore the exact balance between the blocs will not matter. The media spin is also primarily that it's tied.

3. Because of a counting mistake, C lost a seat to SD so it is now unlikely the Alliance would Catch up to the Red-Green bloc.

4. People wonder why S would accept option B I outlined. Well, it might be the only way they can exert some influence. Of course, they might win the chicken race but I have a feeling their outside options are worse. They're about to respond to it in a few minutes and I expect them to say no now. The question is what ends up happening in a few weeks.

5. M+KD+SD can't happen because it doesn't have a majority and everyone else would vote against it. It would also split both M and KD.

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.

[Gustaf]

These poll questions are a bit dubious (they're all qualified with "if necessary") and have notably low response rates.

There is no majority for an M+SD cooperation so that ain't happening. What could happen maybe is an M/M+KD government somewhat propped up by passive SD support or something. But we'll see.

Speaker election is step one, announcements of candidates today. Seems like Alliance will rally behind a well-respected M guy. I Think he probably wins. More interesting will be the challenge from V to SD for second deputy speaker. Traditionally that post goes to the 3rd biggest party (which is SD) so SD has it currently. But there is no formal rule and it's a secret ballot election.

[Gustaf]

Speaker election is happening right now. SD has said they will vote for the M-candidate while the Red-Green will vote for a Social Democrat. Speaker elections are done by secret ballot notably.

By custom, the deputy speakers are awarded based on party size but there is no formal rule. This time V is challenging SD for second deputy speaker. S has said they will vote for the V candidate. The Alliance has said they Think SD should get it but interpreted this as they will abstain.

[Gustaf]

Andreas Norrlén from M won the speaker election with all Alliance + SD voting for him. The Social Democrats got deputy speaker uncontested without vote. After lunch there will be a face-off between SD and V for second deputy speaker.

[Gustaf]

Yeah, pretty tense times at the moment. I still struggle to see L become a support party for S. It'd be virtually guaranteed electoral suicide.

[Gustaf]

I mean, in theory a new election could produce an Alliance plurality in which case they would just form a government I Think.

First round of speaker talks are happening today. No one seems to be budging yet.

[Gustaf]

The thing is also that an S-L-C-MP government with support from V is a nightmare for SD. I imagine they'd retreat a fair bit to prevent that from happening.

[Gustaf]

The thing is also that an S-L-C-MP government with support from V is a nightmare for SD. I imagine they'd retreat a fair bit to prevent that from happening.

Not sure I understand that. I get that it would lead to continued liberal immigration policies, but wouldn't it collapse fairly quickly due to the vast ideological differences between the parties at the extreme ends while gradually creating a conservative opposition bloc made up of SD, M and KD? Splitting the Alliance into Conservatives and Liberals must be good for SD. Their long term goal is presumably a government based on an SD, M, KD majority.

Sure, maybe it'd be a longterm good but short term it would literally mean that that the people who switched from M to SD see that vote resulting in government with both C and MP in it. And it would mean zero influence for SD. I Think they don't want that.

[Gustaf]

I really know little about Swedish politics, but why is the Alliance so opposed to working with the SD?

They're supposed to be centre-right, but I guess "centre-right" really means "barely centre" when compared to countries like Austria?

I would appreciate any comments!

Well first, keep in mind that the Alliance is made up of two liberal parties (Centre Party & the Liberals), one liberal conservative party (the Moderates) and one Christian Democratic Party. So it's all very complicated and there's no easy way to explain it all, but in the end it boils down to basic ideological differences.

For the past eight years they've all been opposed to working with SD mainly due to their roots in the Swedish neo-nazi movement. Not to mention their continuing problems with national and local representatives openly spouting out racism, sexism, anti-semitism and sometimes even openly showing support for neo-nazi organizations like the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR). SD's first strong candidate to become the Mayor of a municipality comparing homosexuals to pedophiles or Mattias Karlsson, the parliamentary leader of the Sweden Democrats, saying it's now a case of "victory or death" after the past election election certainly doesn't help to clean up their image.

However since 2014 the Christian Democrats have moved further to the right and parts of the Moderates have also grown increasingly positive towards at least negotiating with SD on certain issues in parliament. Not an organised supply and confidence deal mind you, because that would still be difficult considering the significant liberal wing among Moderate members and voters which they'd fear move towards the Centre Party if they were to go in that direction. They got some evidence of that during 2017 when they made a small opening towards working with SD and subsequently dropped like a stone in opinion polls, with the Centre Party as the main beneficiary.

The Centre Party, whilst very much to the right when it comes to taxation and the labour market, perhaps the most right-wing of any party in Parliament on those issues, remains firmly opposed to SD because of the vast ideological differences, just like the Liberals. They see SD, with their praise of the politics of Victor Orban, Donald Trump and inability to choose between a dictator like Putin and a democratically elected leader like Macron as dangerous. Working with them would in their eyes in the long run lead to the slow deterioration of the liberal democracy they've both worked to develop and protect. That's why they have such difficulty with being entirely dependent on SD for major votes in parliament, let alone be in government with them. The Liberals are also by far the most pro-EU party in parliament, so in that regard they are complete polar opposites with SD who want to leave the EU.

Also, it's important to remember that the Swedish public are far more socially liberal than some other countries in Europe when it comes to social issues. Gay marriage was approved by every single party in the Alliance except the Christian Democrats back in 2009 while they were in government and former Moderate PM Fredrik Reinfeldt was even one of two Moderate MPs to vote in favour of civil unions when he was a backbencher during the 90s. So the main conflict between left and right in Sweden have historically mainly been about economics and the size of the welfare state, not social issues.

While the Christian Democrats have held (and still do!) socially conservative positions on issues like LGBTQ rights or abortion they don't advertise them, because it's seen as a losing issue in elections. Some SD representatives even mentioned the Social Democrats's attacks on SD's position on reducing the number of weeks of abortion on demand from 18 to 12 as one of the reasons why they lost support in the final weeks of this year's campaign. And supporters of C and L are pretty much the most socially liberal bunch in the Alliance, which increases their distance to SD.

This is a good summary, but I'd also add that a lot of people on the right view SD with distrust on regular policy issues. Many libertarian-leaning people (who aren't a lot of voters but is a non-neglible faction of party members in M, C and L) view SD as basically Social Democrats with a bit of racist flavour. That isn't necessarily entirely accurate and S of course advances the opposite narrative but it's not clear that SD would be a reliable partner for the Alliance when it comes to cutting taxes, deregulating labour markets, advancing private alternatives in the welfare sector, etc.

[Gustaf]

Come to think about it, what's the point of having both Liberals and Centre? They seem quite similar to me tbh

There have actually been attempts at various points throughout the years to merge the parties, but they've all failed due to various reasons. There was one attempt in the early 70s which was supported by Centre Party leader Thorbjörn Fälldin, but he faced significant opposition internally, as did the Liberal (or People's Party) leader at the time. According to former L-leader Lars Leijonborg there were also preliminary talks after the 2002 elections, but it all fell through during the Euro-referendum when the two parties were on opposite sides.

There's also real differences in political cultures between the two parties; the Centre Party is traditionally an agrarian party which is understandably quite fond of subsidising agriculture and rural areas while the Liberals have generally been a party of city-dwelling academics. The Centre has also pretty much always had a far larger membership than the Liberals which would mean that they'd be dominant in any merger, which wouldn't be particularly appealing to the Liberals.

But who knows, if the Alliance falls apart completely those two parties could be looking seriously at a merger at some point as a way to strengthen liberalism in parliament. Also, the Centre Party technically owns the trademark of the Alliance (for tote bags and the like), so in that there's already a possible name for a united C-L party.

Wasn't the most serious attempt in the mid-90s when it actually came to a vote?

[Gustaf]

I don't get Björklund at all. Joining a government with the Social Democrats seems like guaranteed electoral suicide for the party.

[Gustaf]

I still Think new elections are pretty unlikely. Too much to lose for too many parties. I kind of thought Löfven would get it but now that he didn't probability of M+KD seems very high.

[Gustaf]

The policy gap can't be bridged. One or both parties would have to sell out completely.

Lööf wouldn't have to violate any stated principle at all actually. All she'd have to do is to not vote against a government led by her PM candidate and that does not cooperate with SD. That seems like an easier pill to swallow, IMO.

[Gustaf]

The policy gap can't be bridged. One or both parties would have to sell out completely.

Lööf wouldn't have to violate any stated principle at all actually. All she'd have to do is to not vote against a government led by her PM candidate and that does not cooperate with SD. That seems like an easier pill to swallow, IMO.

It seems Sweden lacks genuinely centrist parties. The so-called Centre Party is more right wing than your Conservatives on labour market issues and many economic issues, the Liberals are also right wing on labour market and taxes, the Christian Democrats have moved from being centrist to more Conservative than the Conservatives, and your Greens seem very watermelon-ish. So there aren't really any parties in between the Social Democrats and the Conservatives. Is that correct?

If you're talking strictly economics, I think MP, KD and SD are all somewhere between S and M (MP closer to S, KD and SD more nebulous). But they are obviously each far from the center on other, non-economic issues, and those non-economic issues are their flagship issues, so there's no generally centrist party that can work with both the right and left blocs. C used to be that party but has become libertarian-light in recent years (although its voter base is probably still the most classically "centrist" and wouldn't punish the party for supporting the left).

It was a question for the Swedish posters. I am well aware of the differences on social issues. 

It depends a bit on what issue you look at, but yeah, the Centre party mixes different radical positions these Days and M and S are plausibly the two most centrist parties in terms of their platforms. I'd say the Liberals are fairly centrist as well. 

[Gustaf]

The policy gap can't be bridged. One or both parties would have to sell out completely.

Lööf wouldn't have to violate any stated principle at all actually. All she'd have to do is to not vote against a government led by her PM candidate and that does not cooperate with SD. That seems like an easier pill to swallow, IMO.

But what would such a government look like and which parties would it get a majority with other than SD? I guess that a Kristersson government could say that it's not negotiating with SD and just adapt its budgets and legislation to such a degree that SD would be willing to vote for them, but that's just going to be plainly obvious after a while. And eventually SD are going to flex their muscles to show their power to their supporters by threating to vote for the Social Democratic budget unless they get concessions from Kristersson, so I don't think it'd be sustainable in the long run.

However Lööf always said that she'd never be part of a government dependent on SD during the election and said nothing about tolerating such a government, so I guess that's a loophole. However then you get to her refusal to support Kristersson in the Riksdag a few weeks back and the arguments she put forth then, which would be pretty difficult to backtrack from. How can you say no to a government with the argument that it would be dependent on the far-right one day and then say yes to it the next?

And then there's the issue of how the Centre Party's voters would feel about all this. Given that they framed this election as one about values and made SD their main opponents, would their voters buy C abstaining in a vote for a government that would be dependent on SD in every budget vote? It's quite possible that those voters would be infuriated with any move which gives SD more influence and would subsequently ditch the Centre Party, in spite of Lööf giving herself a loophole in her rhetoric during the election. It's a pure guess, but I think that some of their voters are much less right-wing than their membership and leadership and place a higher priority on keeping SD out of power rather than gutting the Employment Protection Act or implementing major tax cuts. I'm sure that the Centre Party is using it's big coffers to poll these issues, but I don't think there's a simple answer out there that won't result in accusations of betrayal from any flank of the party.

Obviously no outcome is great for them - that's why it's taking so long. But I Think just tolerating a government is easier to get away with than having to actively support one (like they would have to do with S).

If SD starts demanding unpalatable things and M gives in, C can topple the government then but it seems unnecessary to do so in advance. And if SD starts demanding unpalatable things and M does not give in, they can let S topple the government together with SD (as they claim they never will but of course would) and let them sort the mess and bear the political fallout.

I'm not saying any of that is fantastic but I suspect it's better than Selling themselves to S.

[Gustaf]

Is any Swedish party (other than SD) against illegal immigration and for deportation of non-integrated migrants?

I can't tell if you're serious. Most of them are against illegal immigration, lol. I'm not sure what you mean by deporting non-integrated migrants. I don't Think even SD wants to evaluate peoples' "integration" level and then deport them based on that. That sounds a bit insane.

[Gustaf]

Is any Swedish party (other than SD) against illegal immigration and for deportation of non-integrated migrants?

I can't tell if you're serious. Most of them are against illegal immigration, lol. I'm not sure what you mean by deporting non-integrated migrants. I don't Think even SD wants to evaluate peoples' "integration" level and then deport them based on that. That sounds a bit insane.

How come? Sweden accepted the most migrants/capita of any EU country, and all of these people came illegally...

Apart from the fact that most parties support the changed immigration policy those people didn't come illegally by any Swedish definition. They came to seek asylum.

[Gustaf]

Can someone explain why its so difficult for there to be a coalition in Sweden that brings together the centre left and centre right when these arrangements seem very routine in Finland and Norway? In Norway the Centre Party routinely forms coalitions with the Social Democrats and in Finaldn it is veryu common for there to be governments that bring together the Social Democrats and the Centre party and the NCC (whihc is the Finnish equivalent of the Moderates).   

In these countries the far-right is also accepted in government, of course. In Finland politics is significantly less ideological than in Sweden. The Norwegian Centre party is a very different party than the Swedish one and is aligned with the left bloc these Days.

[Gustaf]

The Liberals met with both PM contenders today, one after the other. But Everything remains very secretive.

[Gustaf]

Lolllllll

This is fantastic. I get where V is coming from though. This is going to be a nightmare negotiation for everyone.

[Gustaf]

Lol Swedish Christian Democrats at 12% in new Sentio poll. What the hell is happening?

C+L supporting Löfven's left wing government, Ebba Busch Thor being more charismatic/popular than Ulf Kristersson to pick up those votes. Also this latest poll was carried out just after KD opened for negotiations with SD on specific policy issues, something all parties had rejected so far. In that way, the party has taken the lead in creating a common right wing alternative to the current majority.

In the Sentio Poll, M-KD-SD have 49.3%, while the current centre-left majority is on 48.0%. And with L and MP under the threshold, there is a clear majority for the conservative opposition.

well it doesn't really matter, we are 3,5 years from next election

From the next ordinary election. An extra election before then is more likely than not.

The Left Party won't trigger an early election if there is any chance of M-KD-SD winning a majority. Can you imagine them voting No confidence  in Löfven and we get a dark blue government. They'd never be forgiven by their own voters.

As for the Liberals, they're more scared of an early election than any other party.

The marriage between the left and the liberal parties might be a shot-gun marriage, but the alternatives for all involved parties would be much worse than sticking it out until the term is over, so I can't see any reason to think there'd be an early election.

I agree. It'll be a bit lol once L and C manage to get an unprecedently conservative government with SD Reliance elected though. Good job from them.