The Big Bad Swedish Politics & News Thread

[The Lord Marbury]

Oh yeah, I know what you mean about rural voters not going to the Centre Party. Just in the past two years I've met 11 Centre Party members who are now former members because they gave up their membership. Most of them are now independent swing voters, but 3 of them, including my great uncle have actually joined the Social Democrats. And he was real Centre Party core voter being a farmer, small business owner and all that. He was even the president of his local CUF (or SLU as it was called then) back in the day! But after going on for years and years about how he didn't recognize his party anymore he finally jumped ship last year and moved over to the other team. I'm not sure how many will switch to the Christian Democrats though. Maybe on a national level since the national party leadership isn't really that crazy or extreme, but on the local level Christian Democrats are the most hyper conservative moralizing people in existence. I don't see Centre voters supporting them on that level. Though sadly the Sweden Democrats are definite possibility, especially in rural communities in southern Sweden. But strangly enough, not up here. For some reason they just don't have much of a presence here...

There are nothing strange about it. There are clear historical reason for why rural South Sweden vote difference from the rural north.
Historical the north have been populated by poor rural worker, who even if they owned land, had to work in non-agricultural work and was often semi-migrating.
In south you could live of agriculture, and if you migrated you usual moved permanent to either  Copenhagen, Malmö or a industry town. This created a population which was richer, as people could live of their land, and ones who couldn't moved to urban areas, where they could live of their new jobs. The result was that the people was less loyal to SAP, than the very poor workers of the north. It simply give a higher degree of party loyalty, when people can still tell stories about ancestors who starved, until the unions and SAP put an end to it. It's also why SocDem have never done as well in Denmark as in Sweden and Norway, Danes was simply to well off, to develop the same degree of party loyalty.  

Interesting analysis, but in today's world blaming it on party loyalty falls a bit short since it isn't really all what it used to be, even not up here believe it or not. And after putting some thought into it I actually think it's possible that the reason for SDs lack of growth up here might the lack of any serious right wing forces up here in the north previously. Because one would assume that the primary growth areas of the Sweden Democrats are disaffected Social Democrats like in Denmark for example, but polling have actually shown that while former SAP voters are a key group moving to SD, the biggest group is actually former Moderate voters. Were talking old pre-Reinfeldt Moderates here of course, the ones who believe in strong national defense, lower taxes and stricter immigration control (duh) and all that stuff, but feel that the "new" Moderates are being far too soft in those areas. However we've never really had a lot of those types around here before. The only true right wing force up here for a long time has been the Centre Party, though now with them at the decline I suppose that SD could pick up a fair share of their voters as well, at least the small c (or k) conservative rural voters.

[The Lord Marbury]

Well yesterday Stefan Löfven finally became the Social Democrats party leader in a way "for real" since he was elected for the party congress for the first time and gave a truly cracking speech where he not only attacked the inactive government a few times, but further defined himself and the Social Democrats ahead of next years election. I dare even say that he came of as Prime Ministerial (though I'm sure that others would disagree ).
http://www.thelocal.se/47144/20130404/#.UV5NhRlEqHA

Later today however is when we'll see a real battle over the party's future as the congress will vote over wether to cap profits of private enterprises (which recieve taxpayer funding!) in the welfare sector. Löfven and the executive committee have presented a proposal which wouldn't cap profits but only put some slightly more strict regulations over the companies, something which many party members include myself see as a far too tame.

Personally I would rather see something along the lines of the proposals put for by LO, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, which would in essence mean that profits would not be fully banned but capped so that companies operating in the welfare sector would have significantly smaller profit margins than regular ones. It's probably quite unlikely that the proposal will make it through the congress, but I could settle for some sort of compromise which at leasts give the municipalities a veto so that they can decide if private enterprises operating education or healthcare services can set up shop in their municipality and if they can take out profits from the business.

[The Lord Marbury]

Wait, what are "companies in the welfare sector"? You mean insurance companies?

Nope, companies operating services in the welfare sector, such as private hospitals, schools and nursing homes. Basically they're just like regular private companies, only with the quirk that they get a sizable chunk of taxpayer money to provide services for the same price and quality as the municipal and county operated services. This has lead to the debate over their profits, since there were revelations that some companies had cut back on staff and patient care in order to expand their profit margins, and then there's the fact that a good deal of taxpayer money is ending up in the pockets of venture capitalists which I think many would find quite distasteful.

[The Lord Marbury]

The debate going on is basicly wether privte hospitals, schools, and nursing homes should be allowed to make a profit on their business if it's a business that is fully or partially state funded and is suppouse to provide welfere to someone.

The left's argument being that it's immoral to make a profit on something that is tax-payer funded (so funded by national health insurence, or school voachers) as well as that allowing profits will naturally lead to companies cutting the quality of care and education in order to make large profit.

While the right argue that it would be wrong to be able to make money by making bombs (the military weapon industry in Sweden is huge) while if you do something good like provide health care or education you're not allowed to make money on it, and that the problem with busnisses cutting the quality of care or education is solved by the free market. If your school or hospital doesn't live up to your expectations you switch to another alternative.

The counter argument to that being that switching your hospital/school/nursing home isn't like switching to another brand of bread in the super market, and that (especially when it comes to schools and nursing homes) it's a question of people being too young and too old to be able to make good choices for themselves.     

The question has been splitting the Social Democrats in their traditional right- and left- fractions for quite a while.

LO, (Swedish Trade Union Confederation) who're usually completly worthless, actually come up with a good compromise proposal, which even though I don't agree with it, I think would be a winning position in an election. But if Marbury is correct (and I count on him knowing his party better than I do) that will probably not be adapted.

Another argument against which isn't brought out that often is the fact that it very hypocritical for a government which claims to be fiscally responsible to allow the taxpayers' money to end up in the pockets of venture capitalists based out of tax havens so that the profits aren't even taxed here in Sweden. Also unlike what some rightwingers say about us who oppose profits in welfare we aren't against private alternatives in welfare at, we just believe that their profits should be reinvested in the actual business because it is the best for the patients. Basically what we say is that if your ultimate goal is to just make money and nothing else, then you shouldn't be in the welfare business in the first place.

And to clarify, I'm not saying that there's not enough people who would support the LO proposal in order to give it a majority, because there most likely is, however the big issue here it that a lot of those will most likely not be willing to hand Löfven a major defeat just when he has started to define himself as a credible opponent to Reinfeldt. Some type compromise, quite possibly more far reaching than the one already proposed, is indeed likely to pass.

[The Lord Marbury]

Yes, but there are people on the left, mostly in V but also in your party, who're still entierly against private initiatives altogether. Obviously we shouldn't say you're all the same, but we need to face and debate both positions.

Yes we very much understand that however even when you debate with someone who just wants stop profits or cap them, you're still guilty of using the argument that we're against "freedom of choice" and private intitiatives entirely which is a fallacy.

As for the people who hold your position, that still leaves the question: Why shouldn't people be allowed to make money for being involved in helping people as opposed to producing a physical product. Should being the founder and CEO of a group of succesful  hospitals be valued less than being the founder and CEO of a company in the weapons industry?

Obviously profits shouldn't be allowed to decrease  the quality of the welfere that customers recive, or the conditions of the employes, but that you solve with tighter regulations and harder inspections, not by out-lawing profit. There have been rotten eggs on the market, but should you punish the good companies for John Bauer or Carema being sh**t, or should you make sure they live up to a good standard by regulation, and leave the good alternatives alone. That is where our oppinion differ.

As for the problem with tax-evasion, and tax-planing, that is a different issue that must be tackled seperatley. We need to make sure everyone (undependant of wether they're Bofors or Carema) pay their taxes in Sweden, but that is solved by closing loop-holes and tax treaties, not banning profit for a small number of certain enterprise.

That's because the companies operating in the welfare sector aren't like other companies. If a regular private company wants to take out profits from their enterprise we have no issues with that, but the problem with the ones in welfare is that they're either partially of fully funded by tax money and we find it amoral for the government to allow the taxpayers' money to end up in the pockets of investors because it's supposed to go to financing our common welfare system among other things. Essentially allowing private companies to take a piece of that money and use it as they please is quite simply a waste of the taxpayers' dime.

Yes preventing tax-evasion and tax-planning is indeed a different issue, but fixing that still does not the overall problem that tax money is going into corporate profits.

[The Lord Marbury]

Looks like a compromise in the welfare issue has finally been reached, as reported by Aftonbladet.

Here's a rough translation of the new writings:

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It also mentions national laws regarding quality control, as well as municipal control over planning when and where new schools are established.

I'm actually quite happy with this compromise. It may not be all that I wanted, it may not completely ban profits or seriously cap them, but it's good enough for now. It gives Löfven and the rest of the leadership enough flexibility and it definitely shows that we are offering a clear alternative to the Alliance in welfare issues.

[The Lord Marbury]

Most of the social and economic growth and development of Nordic nations in recent years has been thanks to its intelligent reform and efficient marketisation of public services and sharp fiscal conservatism- well, that's the impression that I get from most sources.

Fiscal conservatism yes, at least during the 1990s when it was sorely needed in light of the crisis of the time, but marketisation of public services hasn't really contributed to economic growth, but rather it has been the strong and stable relations between the parties on the labour market and a well educated population with skills in growing technology-related sectors.

The unfortunate marketisation of vital public services hasn't contributed much at all to our growth, except for the obvious growth of profit-seeking interests in the welfare sector, I guess.

[The Lord Marbury]

The unfortunate marketisation of vital public services hasn't contributed much at all to our growth, except for the obvious growth of profit-seeking interests in the welfare sector, I guess.

Well naturally you would say that, you're a left-winger.

And naturally you would object, you're a right-winger.

+1

[The Lord Marbury]

The Social Democrats have the last couple of days once more been engaged in scandal. This time over one of their newly elected board members who has been accused of anti-semitism and homophobia since he as chairman for the Swedish Islamic Association invited openly anti-semetic and anti-LGBT speakers. Wether he, Omar Mustafa holds these views privatly is unclear. The chritisism has come mostly from inside the party and not from the opposition. 

http://www.thelocal.se/47270/20130411/#.UWp7scq6558

Omar Mustafa has now been forced to resign while giving a minor kicking towards the party leadership while doing so, saying:

“The party leadership believes that having a mandate within the party and within Muslim civil society is incompatible. The party leadership’s view isn’t only regrettable, it’s also a frightening signal to Muslims and other Social Democrats who are people of faith,”

http://www.thelocal.se/47320/20130413/#.UWp928q6558

Ugh. What a mess. This just shows that further changes are needed to implemented in the party's process of electing board members. You can't just finalize the nominations five minutes before a vote, I think that next time the nominees should be presented at least a week before the congress just so that they can be properly scrutinized.

But it is also clear that this was a lose lose situation for the party leadership. When they distanced themselves from Mustafa, eventually leading to SAP's Stockholm branch asking for him to step down, they opened themselves up to a lot of criticism and it could be problematic come the next election considering that 70-75% of Sweden's muslims vote Social Democratic and the party really don't want them looking in different directions.

On the other hand if they'd tried to tone down the whole thing and let Mustafa stay on, they would still been open to a lot of criticism for jewish and LGBT groups which isn't good either. Though suffice to say that some of the allegations levelled at Mustafa were completely fabricated and unfounded, like that weird thing about him a secret millionaire or something.

There, done and done. Sweden is now free and indipendant.

At last, we have liberty from those rotten Danes!

-------

In other news, the SOM Institute has recently released their 2012 opinion survey which shows that a majority of the voters for all major parties except for the Moderates are opposed to further privatization of services in the public sector. And when it comes to profits in welfare there are majorities in every party's vote base, including the Moderates, against them. This do show that the Social Democratic leadership's fear of scaring away voters by being too leftist on the issue probably is completely unfounded. If anything, being clearly opposed to welfare profits would most likely help them.

[The Lord Marbury]

I am curious as to where the Sverigedeomkratene gets their votes from. Is it working class voters that used to vote for Socialdemokratarna? 

SD generally takes voters from all parties across the board, however the party which we're seeing the most movement to the Sweden Democrats is not the Social Democrats, but actually the Moderates. This could be seen as result of Reinfeldt's "New Moderates" and their decision to focus less on issues like defense, immigration and crime than previously, meaning that some of the old guard Moderates jump to SD because they don't feel that M is right wing enough. But M has largely been able to compensate for this by catering to the centrists who used to vote for SAP.

[The Lord Marbury]

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http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5579218

With the Almedalen political week kicking off today I thought I'd share some of the latest polls with you.

Party leader approvals
Fredrik Reinfeldt (M) - 52% (-2)
Stefan Löfven (S) - 43% (+3)
Gustav Fridolin (Mp) - 35% (+8)
Jan Björklund (Fp) - 25% (-2)
Göran Hägglund (Kd) - 24% (-)
Jonas Sjöstedt (V) - 21% (+4)
Åsa Romson (Mp) - 17% (+1)
Annie Lööf (C) - 16% (-2)
Jimmie Åkesson - 12% (-1)


Who would you like to see as Prime Minister after the 2014 election?
Fredrik Reinfeldt (M) - 36%
Stefan Löfven (S) - 36%
Don't know - 19%
Other - 10%

Men
Fredrik Reinfeldt (M) - 41%
Stefan Löfven (S) - 34%
Don't know - 14%
Other - 11%

Women
Stefan Löfven (S) - 38%
Fredrik Reinfeldt (M) - 30%
Don't know - 23%
Other - 14%

Age 18-25
Stefan Löfven (S) - 40%
Fredrik Reinfeldt (M) - 26%
Don't know - 25%
Other - 9%

Age 26-45
Stefan Löfven (S) - 34%
Fredrik Reinfeldt (M) - 33%
Don't know - 19%
Other - 14%

Age 46-65
Stefan Löfven (S) - 36%
Fredrik Reinfeldt (M) - 35%
Don't know - 21%
Other - 7%

Age 65-80
Fredrik Reinfeldt (M) - 48%
Stefan Löfven (S) - 37%
Don't know - 7%
Other - 7%


Should parties form blocs with a common political program before the election

Alliance voters
Yes - 49%
No - 43%
Don't know - 7%
Doesn't mater - 2%

Red-Green voters
No - 63%
Yes - 24%
Don't know - 7%
Doesn't matter - 6%

[The Lord Marbury]

Some other polls...

Party preference poll (DN/Ipsos)

Left: 6,6% (-0,4)
Social Democrats: 33,1% (+1,0)
Greens: 10,5% (-0,2)

Centre: 4,1% (+0,9)
Liberals: 6,4% (+0,6)
Moderates: 26,5% (-2,4)
Christian Democrats: 4,3% (+0,1)

Sweden Democrats: 7,3% (+0,3)

Red-Greens: 50,2%
The Alliance: 41,4%

Which party do you think will lead the government after the 2014 election? (DN/Ipsos)

Red-Green voters
Social Democrats - 78%
Moderates - 14%
Unsure/Don't know - 5%
Other party - 4%

Alliance voters
Moderates - 58%
Social Democrats - 32%
Unsure/Don't know - 6%
Other party - 3%

Which party would you like to see participate in the next government? (Novus) (top 3)

2012
1. Moderates
2. Social Democrats
3. Liberals

2013
1. Social Democrats
2. Greens
3. Moderates.

[The Lord Marbury]

Are you in Visby Marbury, or are you just following it from home like me?
I saw Gustaf posting on FB that he's there at least. 

Sadly not, I was planning on going there with a few friends from SSU but unfortunately work got in the way. So I guess I'm stuck at home just like you, feeling a bit of slight envy while reading friend's facebook statuses from down there.

[The Lord Marbury]

Numbers, numbers, numbers and more numbers!

Which direction do you think Sweden is moving in? (Aftonbladet/United Minds)
The wrong direction - 48,9% (+4,7)
The right direction - 28,6% (-2,5)
Neither right nor wrong - 22,6% (-2,1)

Which government would be the best for.... (Aftonbladet/United Minds)

A good economic development?
A Moderate led government – 45,2% (-3,5)
A Social Democrat led government – 31,9% (+1,3)
Other/don't know – 22,8% (+2,1)

Creating jobs and fighting unemployment?
A Social Democrat led government – 44,0% (+1,1)
A Moderate led government – 29,9% (-4,5)
Other/don't know – 26,2% (+3,5)

Good quality in welfare?
A Social Democrat led government – 47,6% (+2,0)
A Moderate led government – 21,6% (-3,0)
Other/don't know – 30,5% (+1,0)

A good education system?
A Social Democrat led government – 40,6% (+1,9)
A Moderate led government – 31,0% (-1,8)
Other/don't know – 28,4% (-0,2)

The environment?
A Social Democrat led government – 32,4% (+3,8)
A Moderate led government – 18,6% (-2,1)
Other/don't know – 49,0% (-1,7)*

*Of course it doesn't say so in black and white, but the high number of people who picked "other" in environmental issues means that the Greens are of course still the most trusted in this area.

[The Lord Marbury]

You know what grinds my gears ? That conservative right-wing governments or parties are still consistently quoted as the best to create good economic development in these topic-related polls, around the world.

I mean, come on, have they not shownenough  that they are horrible this way, and their economic policies and ideologies are deeply flawed at best ?

Eh, this a relatively new thing over here actually. In the past it has generally been the Social Democrats which has had the most confidence in economic policies and the only thing the right really has which gives them an advantage is Anders Borg and him not really doing... anything. You know, other than just standing there and sounding confident and competent while blaming every single economical problem on the rest of Europe. Besides, when they entered office Göran Persson left them a giant budget surplus which came in handy during the crisis, so they have also had a bit of an easier going than other countries during the crisis.

[The Lord Marbury]

Man we're really spammed by polls this week. Two more on specific issues, with one decissive victory for the left and one decissive victory for the right.

Parental-leave: (by SIFO)
(This one might need a bit of explaining if you're from a country that only has maternity leave*)

75% - Parents should be free to decide by themselves how to divide their leave between them.
20% - It should be equally divided 50/50 between the parents.
5% - Not sure/No oppinion

Lower taxes vs more money to welfere: (by SIFO)

82% - More money to the welfere system is more important
14% - Lower taxes is more important
4% - Not sure/No oppinion



*Today Swedish parents have the right to 480 days of parental-leave for a child. Both the mother and the father needs to take some of the time, meaning one parent can't hog all 480 days for themselves, but parents are mostly free to divide the days between them as they wish. The centre-left parties wants to change this so that parents always must have 240 days each.

Yep, it almost feels as if half of all major political events of a non-election year happens during this little week. Though that's probably just because outside of Almedalen swedish politics is generally a slow affair.

Another party poll...

Party preference poll (Expressen/Demoskop)

Left - 7,8% (+1,4)
Social Democrats - 33,7% (+0,2)
Greens - 8,9% (-2,0)

Centre - 3,2% (-0,2)
Liberal - 5,6% (-0,1)
Moderate - 25,3% (-1,3)
Christian Democrats - 3,2% (-0,2)

Sweden Democrats - 11,8% (+2,0)

Red-Greens - 50,4% (-0,4)
The Alliance - 37,1% (-1,7)

Something strange is going on here, no way those numbers are accurate for the Sweden Democrats when they're much lower in all the other polls.

[The Lord Marbury]

On the Social Democrats day in Almedalen, here's a new poll by Aftonbladet/United Minds.

All voters - which party should the Social Democrats form government with?
Left and Greens - 19%
Greens - 15%
Left - 11%
Greens, Centre and Liberals - 7%
Liberals - 5%
Left, Greens and Liberals - 3%
Centre - 2%
No other party (they should govern alone) - 10%
None of these parties - 12%
Don't know - 17%

[The Lord Marbury]

Summa summarum of Almedalen in this leftwingers opinion:

The red-green opposition parties presented fresh ideas and criticized the government's inaction on unemployment and education, while the government criticized the opposition, claimed there exists no opposition, attacked their own policies and presented opposition ideas as their own.



I shall await the inevitable disagreements.

[The Lord Marbury]

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5598392

Looks like the whole Nuon/Vattenfall mess is back again. But there's no real point in wondering how Reinfeldt will respond to this mess; because he simply won't. He'll just continue to claim he had nothing at all to do with the whole thing and didn't participate in any real discussions about it and that's it really. Even though records do show that he in fact was briefed of the deal and the involved risks, he still won't own up to the facts and have the guts to go up there and say that the government made a boo-boo. But that's no surprise, he has always tried to shift the blame to others and take no real responsibility for himself. It's what he does.

[The Lord Marbury]

^ I have serious doubts that SAP would be willing part with two of the big four ministries like Foreign Affairs and Defense, excepting something like a grand coalition. After all, the Moderates haven't done it either. Otherwise it looks pretty good. Though I sure as hell hope that something like this will never come to fruition.

[The Lord Marbury]

21 Ministries- is Sweden trying to compete with the European Commission?

You can integrate Labour & Social Affairs, Environment & Energy, Education & Science, Enterprise & Financial Markets, Foreign Affairs & EU Affairs (or add EU affairs to the PM portfolio, and put Foreign Aid to Foreign Affairs).

Don't you have a Ministry of Interior ?

Not all those minister posts have their own Ministries. EU Affairs is part of the PM's office, Social Security and Children and Elderly Care are part of Social Affairs, Foreign Aid is in the Foreign Ministry, Financial Markets in the Finance Ministry, Energy and Regions and Infrastructure in the Enterprise Ministry, and Science used to be a portfolio in the Education Ministry.

[The Lord Marbury]

Right now I'm a few hours into the Social Democratic Youth congress, where I'm proudly representing my district as a delegate. Lots of interesting discussions going on like last night with the principles committee apparently having some heated discussions about switching out Democratic Socialism for Social Democracy in our principle program. Brings backs memories of the heavy factional infighting between the right and left during the 90s and early 2000s. Though this specific issue won't be big fight since there's a majority in favor of keeping it the way it is.

Also, walking by LO chairman Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson and former party leaders Mona Sahlin and Håkan Juholt in the hallways: I'll admit, I was starstruck.

[The Lord Marbury]

Right now I'm a few hours into the Social Democratic Youth congress, where I'm proudly representing my district as a delegate. Lots of interesting discussions going on like last night with the principles committee apparently having some heated discussions about switching out Democratic Socialism for Social Democracy in our principle program. Brings backs memories of the heavy factional infighting between the right and left during the 90s and early 2000s. Though this specific issue won't be big fight since there's a majority in favor of keeping it the way it is.

Good to hear you're having fun. Youth congresses are suppose to be.
And the most heated discussions always seem to be about the most trivial issues. At the Centre Youth Congress in May we had a several hours long debate on whether it should be mandatory to visit a farm in Elementary school between the Libertarian faction and the Farmer faction.

Though you should fire however decided the location for '13 should be Täby. I'm sure someone thought it smart to put it in Reinfeldt's home town, but it must be the most boring Suburb in the entire country. 

Yep, though we certainly had a few heated debates about non-trivial issues such as another part of the principle program in regards to the writing about class and capitalism. The board had presented a proposal which was already a compromise between the left and rightwing factions, but Gothenburg refused to stand behind it, instead presenting a weak counterproposal founded on a faulty analysis of captalism which basically attempted to seperate the market from the capitalist system, calling the market a great engine for creativity and innovation which IMO is a definite liberal line going against everything a democratic socialist organization should stand for. And unfortunately Gothenburg's proposal passed narrowly with the right wing districts having a slight majority. But, after talking with several other delegates from rightwing districts it would actually appear that there was a majority in favor of the boards original compromise but due to the extremely strong whip within districts they were pressured into voting for the Gothenburg proposal. I myself experienced that as my district is a rightwing one and I actually had to vote in secret for the original proposal because of the strong pressure from our delegation leader to vote for Gothenburg.

It's sad that still after the left/right infighting the youth league suffered during the 90s were still locked in a state where often people place their votes not based on the merits of the presented proposal, but on which district it originates with and that districts often pressures their delegates not to vote as their hearts and minds desire but to follow the district line. This can be acceptable when it comes to an issue when the district conference has taken a clear stance and you have to respect the will of the district's members on the issue, but otherwise the practice should just stop. It's simply undemocratic.

I'm sure that CUF also suffers from some similar problems with its libertarian and farmer factions as well, though perhaps to a lesser degree what with CUF and the Centre being much smaller than SSU and SAP and much less of a big tent.

And I do agree with you in regards to Täby that it is an extremely dull and boring suburb but I have to say that it was nice to be there to show support for SSU Täby and other SSU clubs located in heavily rightwing municipalities. And of course also due to the symbolism of it being Reinfeldt's hometown. But with the congress having been held in the Stockholm area two times in a row now, I do hope we'll see it being held somewhere else next time. Personally, I think Sundsvall would be a good choice.

[The Lord Marbury]

You whip the delegates... at a party congress... for the Youth Organisation???!!!
I knew that SSU was really bad when it comes the factional wars, but that's not something I would have thought in my wildest anti-Social Democratic dreams. I mean, how anti-democratic can a democratic party actually get? Aren't you suppouse to be the Peoples' Movement party. How can you be that if you're not even allowing delegates to have their own opinions even on a party congresses?   
You guys really need to drop this whole civil war schtick if you want to survive in the long run. 
Good to hear you stood your ground and voted with your heart though.

We have a lot of factional battles in CUF as well, but the idea that I for example would be forced to vote for a flat tax because because my district is majority Libertarian, or that Hanna Wagenius would be forced to vote for the monarchy because her district is Farmer dominated would be absurd to us.

Anyway rant over.

Hosting the congress is lots of fun so you guys should definable try to get it to your district next year. Though why settle with Sundsvall, show them some real deep red Labour area and take them all the way home to Kramfors.  

In other news, I received my preselection ballot for the Centre Party list for the EP elections today. I will have a long night researching all the 90!! candidates.

Well unfortunately it's sort of grown into an unofficial thing, delegation leaders will only say that for example they prefer that reservations are talked over with the delegation a few days prior to the congress and they never openly force delegates into voting a certain way, so it's not really official whipping but more subtle hinting and all under the table if you know what I mean. And I stress that the level of "whipping" depends on the district, and some such as Uppland do not partake in the practice.

Yep, that'd be pretty damn sweet. Hell, why not hold the whole thing in Kramfors instead. Give some attention to the smaller towns for once!

Cool! I would say good luck, but I since I'm hoping we'll thoroughly kick your asses that would be a bit dishonest.

[The Lord Marbury]

I guess it's a clash of ideology between a collectivist and statist ideal on the Socialist parties where individuls are not allowed to put themselves ahead of the group as opposed to the free individualist ideal of Green and Liberal parties.  

I don't agree with the notion that we have "whips" because of that honestly quite vague reason. But when you take time to consider that most Social Democratic parties in Europe tend to be very much big tent, often containing everyone from socialists to social liberals, it makes a lot of sense that the practice would instead develop as a symptom of the ideological battles within the parties and youth organizations.