The Big Bad Swedish Politics & News Thread

[ingemann]

What's causing the Sweden Democrats surge?

They aren't surgeing as much as they're steadily climbing really. They gained a little for every month since the 2010 election. 7,8% is actually down slightly from some previous polls in 2012. Granted they should be down more considering they've had nothing but bad publicity since mid-june, but then they're not called the Teflon-party for nothing.  

Quite logical, when the media have always hated them, and always treated them lkke a pariah, bad publicity becomes almost irrelevant, as it in their potential voters opinion just the "multikulti"(to borrow a term from German) media or elite attempt to bring them down.

[Silent Hunter]

IIRC, the Crown Princess is the only female heir to a European monarchy ATM.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

New SKOP poll. This time about the two PM candidates.

Who do you think would be a more skillfull leader as Prime Minister:

Fredrik Reinfeldt    66,4%
Stefan Löfvén         33,6%

Who do you think would be the nicer person to have dinner with:


Fredrik Reinfeldt    57,6%
Stefan Löfvén         42,4%


Though these numbers seem bad for the Löfvén it's worth noting that the previous S leader Håkan Juholt lost to Reinfeldt 13% to 87% on the first question when they polled this a year ago. 

[Antonio the Sixth]

Thank God Sweden is a parliamentary regime where people vote based on party affiliation rather than personal preference.

[Tayya]

The aforementioned new Centre Party policy changes are opposed by several local party heads and chances are it will be revised to some extent or maybe even trashed altogether. Every party except the Left Party is having a congress next year; the Centre Congress might be the most interesting one. The leftist tabloid Aftonbladet has its resign-bazooka (that has already targeted possible prostitute solicitor and former Minister of Employment Sven-Otto Littorin and the one and only Håkan Juholt among others) set on Centre Party leader Annie Lööf, a rising star who turned out to be somewhat of a flop, and they'll probably unleash everything they've got.

If a party which has very little presence in Stockholm City (around 1% according to the latest Government Bureau of Statistics megapoll) assigns its Stockholm Municipality Councilman, who I know best for wanting more skyscrapers in Stockholm, the head of their policy commission then the party kind of deserves it.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

The aforementioned new Centre Party policy changes are opposed by several local party heads and chances are it will be revised to some extent or maybe even trashed altogether. Every party except the Left Party is having a congress next year; the Centre Congress might be the most interesting one.

It will be bloody, I can tell you that.

Welcome to the forum btw. Might I ask where you stand politically?

[Tayya]

The aforementioned new Centre Party policy changes are opposed by several local party heads and chances are it will be revised to some extent or maybe even trashed altogether. Every party except the Left Party is having a congress next year; the Centre Congress might be the most interesting one.

It will be bloody, I can tell you that.

Welcome to the forum btw. Might I ask where you stand politically?

Generally center-left, at times radical and at times semi-fascist depending on my mood. And thanks.

[Franzl]

We can always use more Swedes here Welcome.

[Diouf]

I guess the Gothenburg riots might have helped the SD even further. I can see that they are on 10 % in the latest poll from SIFO, making them the third-biggest party just infront of the Green party

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Generally center-left, at times radical and at times semi-fascist depending on my mood. And thanks.

So an MP voter basicly.
It will be good to have a more center-left Swede on here, both me and Gustaf are right-wingers. 

I guess the Gothenburg riots might have helped the SD even further. I can see that they are on 10 % in the latest poll from SIFO, making them the third-biggest party just infront of the Green party

Gothenburg riots? Those happened twelve years ago. I don't really think they have an impact today. ^^

EDIT: Oh wait, now I realise what you mean. You mean the instagram incident. Doubt that has anything to do with the polls. Unless the Sweden Democrats are also anti-teenagers.

[Diouf]

I guess the Gothenburg riots might have helped the SD even further. I can see that they are on 10 % in the latest poll from SIFO, making them the third-biggest party just infront of the Green party

Gothenburg riots? Those happened twelve years ago. I don't really think they have an impact today. ^^

Maybe disturbances would be a better wording, but I'm refering to what happened at and outside the high schools in Gothenburg in December,

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I guess the Gothenburg riots might have helped the SD even further. I can see that they are on 10 % in the latest poll from SIFO, making them the third-biggest party just infront of the Green party

Gothenburg riots? Those happened twelve years ago. I don't really think they have an impact today. ^^

Maybe disturbances would be a better wording, but I'm refering to what happened at and outside the high schools in Gothenburg in December,

Ah yes sorry, I realised that just after I posted. See my edit.

[Diouf]

I guess the Gothenburg riots might have helped the SD even further. I can see that they are on 10 % in the latest poll from SIFO, making them the third-biggest party just infront of the Green party

Gothenburg riots? Those happened twelve years ago. I don't really think they have an impact today. ^^

EDIT: Oh wait, now I realise what you mean. You mean the instagram incident. Doubt that has anything to do with the polls. Unless the Sweden Democrats are also anti-teenagers.

I don't think they are anti-teenagers, but they are anti-immigrant, so as it was predominantly immigrant teenagers I imagine that has helped them further.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I don't think they are anti-teenagers, but they are anti-immigrant, so as it was predominantly immigrant teenagers I imagine that has helped them further.

I don't think they were predominantly immigrant. I haven't so read anywhere and the pictures I've seen doesn't show the kids to have more immigrants than usual. But I don't know for sure. Do you have a source? 

[Diouf]

I don't think they are anti-teenagers, but they are anti-immigrant, so as it was predominantly immigrant teenagers I imagine that has helped them further.

I don't think they were predominantly immigrant. I haven't so read anywhere and the pictures I've seen doesn't show the kids to have more immigrants than usual. But I don't know for sure. Do you have a source? 

Hehe, I certainly wasn't expecting the Swedish newspapers to write so. I haven't noticed if any newspapers published pictures of the arrested so nothing is certain, but, the sources i've seen believes that it was the case as the instagram profile was called orroz, which is apparently Persian or Turkish for slut, and that most of the comments were from other immigrants. Also due to footage like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z16Y5u1YBH8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmV408vE3FM

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I don't think they are anti-teenagers, but they are anti-immigrant, so as it was predominantly immigrant teenagers I imagine that has helped them further.

I don't think they were predominantly immigrant. I haven't so read anywhere and the pictures I've seen doesn't show the kids to have more immigrants than usual. But I don't know for sure. Do you have a source? 

Hehe, I certainly wasn't expecting the Swedish newspapers to write so.

Well obviously.
Still if you read between the lines you can usually tell when they are and when they're not. Anyway you might be right. Though I still don't think it has influenced the polls. The SIFO poll was from early December, mostly taken in late November. (That's why C is still above 4% in that poll as well. They announced their new platform the same day as the Gothenburg thing.)

[Diouf]

I don't think they are anti-teenagers, but they are anti-immigrant, so as it was predominantly immigrant teenagers I imagine that has helped them further.

I don't think they were predominantly immigrant. I haven't so read anywhere and the pictures I've seen doesn't show the kids to have more immigrants than usual. But I don't know for sure. Do you have a source? 

Hehe, I certainly wasn't expecting the Swedish newspapers to write so.

Well obviously.
Still if you read between the lines you can usually tell when they are and when they're not. Anyway you might be right. Though I still don't think it has influenced the polls. The SIFO poll was from early December, mostly taken in late November. (That's why C is still above 4% in that poll as well. They announced their new platform the same day as the Gothenburg thing.)

Ahh, sorry.  It certainly didn't affect those numbers then. Just looked at it at Wikipedia's site of opinion polling when it said December 2012, and took for granted that it was end-December as the reference wasn't working.

Is it likely that one of the party from either sides will turn into a support party for the other side, or will both sides generally prefer to rule with an uncertain majority instead?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Is it likely that one of the party from either sides will turn into a support party for the other side, or will both sides generally prefer to rule with an uncertain majority instead?

It's hard to say. I think that if the Alliance is bigger they'll probably prefer to continue in the same fashion as now with making a few grand deals with S on foreign policy, defence, and some other big issues while relying on either the Greens or SD to govern otherwise. (depending on the issue)

No idea what would happen if the center-left is bigger. It's hard to see any of the minor right-wing parties making an official agreement with them and they don't have the same chances with having a succesful uncertain majority as they can't rely on SD-support. S and MP will have some very though negociations if they wish to form a government and they don't have their own majority.


   

[Tayya]

Thanks for the welcomes. For the record, I lack a partisan identification and prefer to analyze than bring my own opinions.

What happens during 2013 and early 2014 will affect a potential Social Democratic-led government. I don't even know if they could get supply and confidence from the Left Party without being a part of the government anymore. Whether the results, it would probably be very much of a lame duck on most issues.

[Tayya]

Centre Party Deputy Chairman and Caucus Leader in the Riksdag says to Aftonbladet that the party leadership will not adopt several of the controversial changes. Less controversial counter-proposals have been written. It's basically dead in the water.

[Leftbehind]

The aforementioned new Centre Party policy changes are opposed by several local party heads and chances are it will be revised to some extent or maybe even trashed altogether. Every party except the Left Party is having a congress next year; the Centre Congress might be the most interesting one.

It will be bloody, I can tell you that.

Welcome to the forum btw. Might I ask where you stand politically?

Generally center-left, at times radical and at times semi-fascist depending on my mood. And thanks.

When you say semi-fascist do you mean authoritarian, or?

[ingemann]

Gothenburg riots? Those happened twelve years ago. I don't really think they have an impact today. ^^

EDIT: Oh wait, now I realise what you mean. You mean the instagram incident. Doubt that has anything to do with the polls. Unless the Sweden Democrats are also anti-teenagers.

The problem with not mention people´s ethnicity in the news, is that people come to their own conclusions.

What do think youth, non-political riots and major city translate into in most people´s minds?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Actually I just realised that SD's rise in polls recently might actually be fueled by something completly different than anti-immigration. It might actually have to do with their other speciality, being anti-EU. It's a long-shot but there might be a correlation.

The European Union has not had good publicity in Sweden recently. It was in a bad position already thanks to the Euro-crisis and the bail-outs and this fall there has just been a storm of news that has been negative for the EU.

First there was the nomination of Tonio Borg to Health and Consumer Commissioner. Borg's for Swedish standards ultra-conservative positions on abortion, divorce and LGBT-rights resulted in quite many articles about the nomination and a lot of calls for Sweden to do its best to stop him getting the position.

Then we had a couple on news stories on EU's 2013 budget and especially Erasmus funding. The story at the time was that Erasmus funding would be dramaticly cut (while subsidies to French farmers would not) and Sweden would probably be asked to pay more money to the EU.

Then the EU had to go and make itself even more unpopular by trying to ban a string of Swedish products that Swedish people like. There was talk about the Swedish special-excemption for the ban of snus not being re-newed. Considering the general conception in Sweden is that the '94 referendum would have failed miserably with-out that special-excemption for Sweden, saying it might expire was not popular.

Then they pissed off us even more by discussing a ban on salmiak in food products. For those who now anything about Scandinavian and Dutch candy, you should now why this was not positive. (It was like telling an American you're thinking of banning bacon.)
Then today we had the news that Julmust might be next-in line for things Swedish people love that the EU wants to take from us.

It's only a theory, but I really think there might be something to it. (Also I'd love a poll on how many Swedes think we should leave the EU, the number at the moment should be rather disasterous.)     

[Leftbehind]

Yougov have a Euro tracker, originating from their French arm, asking it to several countries - with Sweden amongst them:

"If there was a referendum on [COUNTRY’S] membership of the European Union, how would you vote?"

Oct 2012
Swedish sample: 1,012   
44% I would vote to remain a member of the European Union
41% I would vote to leave the European Union
 3% I would not vote
12% Don't know

Nov 2012
Swedish sample: 1,006   
44% I would vote to remain a member of the European Union
40% I would vote to leave the European Union
 3% I would not vote
13% Don't know

Still awaiting December's.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I expected bad numbers for the pro-EU side. I didn't expect them to be that bad. O.o

Oh please can we have another referendum on this.