EP elections 2014

[Tayya]

Since we're getting regular Austrian updates, I'd like to note what's happening up here as well.

The party lists are currently being presented and decided. The Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Centre Party, Moderates, Left Party, Greens and Pirates have presented their lists, while the Liberals, Sweden Democrats and the Feminist Initiative have not. The June List, which lost its 3 mandates in 2009, has been inactive in later years and doesn't have a party leader, but might get around 1% if they put up a list.

Two Social Democrats, PES deputy leader Göran Ferm and Åsa Westlund, are retiring - the latter is speculated to become Minister for the EU if the Social Democrats win the election. One Moderate, Anna Ibrisagic, is also leaving, as is Green Carl Schlyter due to term limits, who will return to national politics as well. Alf Svensson, Christian Democratic leader 1973-2004, also leaves in 2014, likely retiring.

Replacing them at the top of their lists are Former Youth League chair Jytte Guteland, who I'm not really a fan of, and MP Aleksander Gabelic for the Social Democrats, former spokesperson/party leader Peter Eriksson for the Greens and surprisingly EU-skeptic MP Carl-Oskar Bohlin for the Moderates. The Social Democratic Youth League decided to put up a candidate of their own despite Guteland, their Secretary Ellinor Eriksson, who is number 7 on the list (the Social Democrats have 6 mandates at the moment).

Liberal MEP, "old cranky lady" Marit Paulsen decided to run for re-election, and because of her personal popularity she will probably net the Liberals a few percentage points, which they would potentially have lost if she hadn't been running.

For the Christian Democrats, well-known journalist Lars Adaktusson is at the top of the list, before rising star and Chair of Social Affairs in Uppsala Ebba Busch Thor, who was featured in a TV series this year about local politicians and might become the next party leader.

The Centre Party and Left Party are running incumbent no-names Kent Johansson and Mikael Gustafsson, respectively, who both were not elected but replaced their predecessors when they resigned - the Centre Party's Lena Ek to become Minister of the Environment, the Left Party's Eva-Britt Svensson for health reasons. The Left Party will likely lose votes because they dont have any known names on the ballot, while the Centre Party has some bigger names that won't get elected. If any party will lose its representation, it will probably be the Centre Party, which is struggling nationally as well.

The Pirate Party had an internal fight over who would be their front-runner of their two incumbent MEPs. Unfortunately, my personal favorite Amelia Andersdotter again got spot number 2 on the list. The Pirates might save one mandate, keyword: might, but two is very unlikely and perhaps the best MEP in Europe will likely have to return home.

The Greens will probably keep at least 2 mandates, but if they don't, expect former party leader Eriksson with high name recognition to get enough personal votes to send home fisheries expert and Sweden's second greatest MEP to be sent home.

The Sweden Democrats will gain mandates, but I don't know who will run, probably an MP. the Feminist Initiative will run Gudrun Schyman as always but won't gain a mandate.

[Tayya]

The Swedish Left Party Congress today decided to knock their incumbent MEP, Mikael Gustafsson, down to number 2 on the party list in favor of Malin Björk, currently a Brussels official and someone who I have never heard of before. Gustafsson was never elected, but was number 2 on the list in the last election and replaced Eva-Britt Svensson who stepped down from the European Parliament and is now running for a Riksdag seat. Gustafsson, who lost by two votes, is not a household name, but overtook Eva-Britt Svensson's chairmanship of the Committee of Equality.

The Left Party usually overperforms in the EUP elections and it isn't impossible for them to retake the second seat that they lost in 2009.

Apart from the gender aspect (the Left Party wants to brandish its feminist credentials, possibly to avoid competition from the Feminist Initiative) Björk is apparantly also a lesbian, though I don't know if that is part of the reason why she was raised from being number 9 on the party list to the #1 spot. The original list proposition had five other women before her on the list so there's probably internal reasons I don't know of at play here as well.

[Tayya]

The Sweden Democrats might leave the planned Far-Right group (called EAF) because the recent "n-conglomerate/Third Reich/anti-David Alaba"-rants from FPÖ's Mölzer are "not tolerable" for them:

http://derstandard.at/1395363930520/Moelzers-Aussagen-fuer-Schwedendemokraten-nicht-tolerierbar



Excellent. It's better that this Far-Right group is never established anyway.

I don't think you understand how baffling it is to see the Sweden Democrats actually draw the line someone. The statement is from their most extreme MP, even, who regularly talks about "people exchanges" and other unpleasantries.

[Tayya]

MP being so high and SD so low makes that poll look like a huge outlier.

MP tends to overperform in EP elections, partly thanks to right-leaning environmentalist voters not having to care about putting a left-wing government in place. SD's voters are hard to turn out, many of them being low-income and presumably low-info voters.

The EP polls are more volatile, though, since turnout can shift more considerably than in the national elections. EP polls being rare doesn't help.

[Tayya]

One of the last credible polls (I imagine the tabloids will have theirs out tomorrow) for the Swedish EP election arrived today, and it is an especially noteworthy one:

Social Democrats - 25.1% (-1.8%) (6)
Green Party - 15.5% (+0.6%) (3)
Left Party - 7.1% (-3.1%) (2)

Centre Party - 5.0% (+1.8%) (1)
Liberal Party - 11.1% (+2.7%) (2)
Moderates - 15.0% (-1.3%) (3)
Christian Democrats - 6.1% (-0.3%) (1)

Sweden Democrats - 6.3% (-0.3%) (1)
Feminist Initiative - 5.4% (+2.9%) (1)
Pirate Party - 2.8% (-1.1%) (-)
Others incl. June List - 0.6% (-0.1%) (-)

This is the first time since 2002, after their disastrous national election, that he Moderates are not one of the two biggest parties. While they will almost certainly keep their status as second come tomorrow, the fact that this poll exists is a bit embarrassing for them and won't exactly help their turnout (it's going up in general, though, according to early numbers, which will help them).