The Big Bad Swedish Politics & News Thread

[The Lord Marbury]

Why on earth I've never looked for a Swedish political thread on this forum before is beyond me, but I'm sure glad I did! I'll just dive right in.

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.

Firstly, I'd like to say how nice it is to see you over here on this forum. And secondly I would say that after talking to several people at local SSU meetings, especially my local Ombudsman who also works part time as an aide for Social Democratic MPs in the Riksdag, most of the people with any major role in the leadership of the Social Democrats have given up any illusions about being able to govern as a one party government in the eventuality of a red green majority following the next election. They know that the next time they're in government it's going to be in coalition with either the Left, the Greens or both.

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.

Wow, that's still a surprisingly high number of people who'd say no to the EU. I do wonder why in such a case as this the Left Party haven't started the flex their eurosceptic muscles a bit more since that might bring some of the anti-EU voters who now support SD over to their camp. Though obviously the bridge between V and SD is an extremely one, so the only ones who could move from one to the other are one issue voters who only support SD for euroscepticism and nothing else.

A full out internal war is basicly happening in the Center party right now. Annie Lööf's attempts to cool down the conflict has not been very effective to say the least. For every day that pass I'm more and more convinced that the party will not survive this.

From my point of view she's probably going to have a very hard time distancing herself from that controversial piece of paper since there are interviews and blog posts to prove that a lot of those opinions are her own. I do wonder if, in case of falling numbers in polls (for now they appear to be holding steady), the possbility is open that she'll go the way of Maria Leissner (Fp leader, 95-97) and step down before the next election. Granted, things would probably have to get real bad for that to happen...

[The Lord Marbury]

Anyone other than me who's going to watch the party leaders debate in the Riksdag today. It starts airing at 9am on SVT2, or you can watch it live on SVT's homepage.

http://www.svt.se/nyheter/svtforum/arets-forsta-partiledardebatt

[Gustaf]

Wow, long thread. I'd like to comment more when I have more time. For now I'll just note that I have some friends involved in the Centre Party draft and the youth movement there IS pretty libertarian.

Annie Lööf is viewed as a catastrophe even by those people though.

[Gustaf]

Also, this is like an all time high for Swedish members of the forum it seems.

[The Lord Marbury]

From what I saw of the leaders debate in the Riksdag I was somewhat dissapointed at Damberg's preformance. While he carried his arguments well and his tone, while a bit agressive, still came off as better than the slightly smarmy and overconfident way Reinfeldt debated, I was dissapointed over what he said about profits in the welfare sector. It wasn't surprising, considering that he's on the right of his party, but this happens to be a problem for the entire party leadership as a whole.

As I said yesterday on another forum, when polls show that 94% of Social Democrats and 77% of voters as a whole are strongly in favor of either banning or heavily regulating profits in welfare, it's time for Löfven and the rest of the leadership to finally come out of the closet and show that they're Social Democrats.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Sifo (the most reliable pollster in Sweden) has released their first 2013 poll.

The Centre party has their worst poll result ever in a Sifo poll while the Christian Democrats are picking up enough support from them to pull themselves over the 4% line.

Alliance: 43,2%

M: 29,3%
FP: 6,2%
KD: 4,5%
C: 3,2%

Centre-left: 47,2%

S: 33,6%
MP: 9,0%
V: 4,6%

Sweden Democrats: 9,1%

SD would be the third largest party, barely beating the Greens.

[The Lord Marbury]

Sifo (the most reliable pollster in Sweden) has released their first 2013 poll.

The Centre party has their worst poll result ever in a Sifo poll while the Christian Democrats are picking up enough support from them to pull themselves over the 4% line.

Alliance: 43,2%

M: 29,3%
FP: 6,2%
KD: 4,5%
C: 3,2%

Centre-left: 47,2%

S: 33,6%
MP: 9,0%
V: 4,6%

Sweden Democrats: 9,1%

SD would be the third largest party, barely beating the Greens.

A quick run of those numbers through a seat allocation calculator gives these seat numbers. Though since we use a modified version of the Sainte-Laguë method here, it's probably off by a few seats here and there.

S - 123 seats
M - 108 seats
Sd - 33 seats
Mp - 33 seats
Fp - 22 seats
V - 15 seats
Kd - 15 seats
C - 0 seats

Centre-Left Bloc - 171 seats (4 seats short of a majority)
The Alliance - 145 seats

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

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It awards large parties, is neutral to medium-sized parties and punishes small parties, so my guess is S and M would get a few more seats, MP and SD would be the same, and FP, KD, and V would get less.

If your seat acollation calculator is in excel you can modify it to the Swedish system. (Not that it'd be completly reliable either due to not taking into account constituency level results.)

[The Lord Marbury]

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It awards large parties, is neutral to medium-sized parties and punishes small parties, so my guess is S and M would get a few more seats, MP and SD would be the same, and FP, KD, and V would get less.

If your seat acollation calculator is in excel you can modify it to the Swedish system. (Not that it'd be completly reliable either due to not taking into account constituency level results.)

Actually its an online calculator (found here: http://staatsrecht.honikel.de/en/sainte-lague-schepers-verfahren.htm).

Though it could actually be fairly accurate since 15 is the lowest number of seats any party has attained in a parliamentary election since the unicameral Riksdag was implemented. But as you said, the constituency results do mess things up a bit.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

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Added seat changes from the 2010 election.

[The Lord Marbury]

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Added seat changes from the 2010 election.

Nice.

There's also this thing today:
http://www.thelocal.se/45720/20130121/#.UP05APJUV8s
http://www.thelocal.se/45728/20130121/#.UP04_PJUV8s

I think most people expected that Sabuni's departure was close at hand ever since the Ministry of Equality was eliminated after the 2010 election and her post became part of the Education Ministry. Though I at least expected that her resignation wouldn't come so suddenly, but there you go...

[The Lord Marbury]

This just in: http://www.thelocal.se/45890/20130129/#.UQgLbujOxnI

In a way it's good news for SAP I guess, since the government won't be getting a feather in their cap by sheparding though a major deal between the unions and the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise just a little over a year prior to the next election. And the risk of blowback for SAP isn't as big as it might have been since it was Swedish Enterprise which walked out on the deal and not LO.

[The Lord Marbury]

DN/Ipsos poll:

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Seems like the Christian Democrats and Centre are still doing very badly and are continuing their stay below the 4% threshold, while the Sweden Democrats are continuing to gain. Though I do wonder what's with that sudden 3% drop for the Social Democrats, seemingly coming out of nowhere.

[Peter the Lefty]

So the center party has suddenly gone all Jerry Brown-style yuppie?  Lol.

[The Lord Marbury]

So the center party has suddenly gone all Jerry Brown-style yuppie?  Lol.

LOL, that's actually a good way of putting it.

---

Also, I forgot to post the seat calculations for the latest poll, so here they are:

Left: 5,9% - 19 (±0)
Social Democrats: 29,8% - 113 (+1)
Greens: 8,6% - 31 (+6)

Centre: 3,3% - 0 (-23)
Moderate: 32,3% - 124 (+17)
Liberal: 7,2% - 27 (+3)
Christian Democrats: 3,2% - 0 (-19)

Sweden Democrats: 9,0% - 35 (+15)

Red-Greens: 44,4% - 163 (+7)
The Alliance: 46% - 151 (-22)

[The Lord Marbury]

Here are the latest two polls, published today.

YouGov/Metro:
Left Party - 5,4 (-0,7)
Social Democrats - 31,3% (-0,1)
Green Party - 9,7% (+1,4)

Centre Party - 3,3% (-1,2)
Liberal Party - 5,8% (+0,9)
Moderate Party - 28,8% (+1,4)
Christian Democrats - 3,5% (-1)

Sweden Democrats - 11,5% (-1)

Red-Greens - 46,4%
The Alliance - 41,4%

Demoskop/Expressen:
Left Party - 5,8% (-0,1)
Social Democrats - 31,9% (-0,8)
Green Party - 8,5% (+1,2)

Centre Party - 3,4% (-1,1)
Liberal Party - 6,5% (+0,1)
Moderate Party - 29,4% (-1,1)
Christian Democrats - 4,4% (+1,5)

Sweden Democrats - 9,6% (+0,4)

Red-Greens - 46,2%
The Alliance - 43,7%


I've also done seat calculations for both polls:

YouGov/Metro:
Left - 20 (+1)
Social Democrats - 121 (+9)
Green - 35 (+10)

Centre - 0 (-23)
Liberal - 20 (-4)
Moderate - 110 (+3)
Christian Democrat - 0 (-19)

Sweden Democrat - 43 (+23)

Red-Green: 176 seats (majority of 2)
The Alliance: 130 seats

Demoskop/Expressen:
Left - 19 (±0)
Social Democrats - 118 (+6)
Green - 30 (+5)

Centre - 0 (-23)
Liberal - 23 (-1)
Moderate - 110 (+3)
Christian Democrat - 15 (-4)

Sweden Democrat - 34 (+14)

Red-Green 167 seats (8 seats short of a majority)
The Alliance: 148 seats

[The Lord Marbury]

SIFO poll:
Left - 5,4% (-0,3)
Social Democrats - 35,0% (+3,7)
Greens - 9,3% (-1,7)

Centre - 3,8% (+0,2)
Liberals - 5,6% (-0,6)
Moderates - 27,3% (-1,7)
Christian Democrats - 3,3% (-0,3)

Sweden Democrats - 9,0% (+0,5)

Red-Greens - 49,7%
The Alliance - 40,0%

Seats:
Left - 19 seats (±0)
Social Democrats - 136 seats (+24)
Greens - 35 seats (+10)

Centre - 0 (-23)
Liberals - 19 (-5)
Moderates - 105 (-2)
Christian Democrats - 0 (-19)

Sweden Democrats - 35 (+15)

Red-Greens - 190 seats (majority of 15)
The Alliance - 124 seats

----------------

It should come as no surprise that I am simply all smiles when looking at these numbers.

[politicus]

In the old days some Swedish Social Democrats voted Communist to keep the party above the 4% threshold. Those voters where known as "Comrade 4 percents". Will we see any Moderates doing the "Comrade 4%" thing and voting Centre or Christian Democrat this time? I could imagine at least tactical CD voting would be tempting. Any polls on this issue? Aka "If it looks like X will not make the threshold would you consider voting for them?".

[The Lord Marbury]

In the old days some Swedish Social Democrats voted Communist to keep the party above the 4% threshold. Those voters where known as "Comrade 4 percents". Will we see any Moderates doing the "Comrade 4%" thing and voting Centre or Christian Democrat this time? I could imagine at least tactical CD voting would be tempting.

Well yes it is quite likely that Moderate voters will support the Christian Democrats and Centre Party since that actually happened in the last election. IIRC, in fact 2% of Centre Party's voters last time around were actually Moderates who supported the party when it was hovering just above 4% for a while there. But the issue here is if those Moderate support voters will be enough considering that back '09 when the Alliance was also in trouble, it was only the Christian Democrats who were steadily getting numbers below the threshold. Now it's both the Christian Democrats and the Centre Party, so there's the chance that one of those parties might make it while the other does not. There's also worth remembering that when the Christian Democrats were in trouble back then, they were only below the threshold for a few months, while this time around they have been staying below four percent for a good long while now.

[The Lord Marbury]

SIFO poll:

2011 - Who do you trust the most to lower unemployment?
A Moderate led government (Fredrik Reinfeldt) - 49%
A Social Democratic government (Håkan Juholt) - 31%

2013 - Who do you trust the most to lower unemployment?
A Social Democratic government (Stefan Löfven) - 44% (+13)
A Moderate led government (Fredrik Reinfeldt) - 35% (-14)


2011 - Who do you trust the most with the economy?
A Moderate led government (Fredrik Reinfeldt) - 59%
A Social Democratic government (Håkan Juholt) - 25%

2013 - Who do you trust the most with the economy?
A Moderate led government (Fredrik Reinfeldt) - 50% (-9)
A Social Democratic government (Stefan Löfven) - 32% (+7)


2011 - Who do you trust the most to govern the country?
A Moderate led government (Fredrik Reinfeldt) - 55%
A Social Democratic government (Håkan Juholt) - 28%

2013 - Who do you trust the most to govern the country?
A Moderate led government (Fredrik Reinfeldt) - 40% (-15)
A Social Democratic government (Stefan Löfven) - 39% (+11)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Hopefully the trends keep going in that direction until 2014... I remember that in 2010 the Left coalition had a lead early on which eroded throughout the campaign. Is Löfven competent, campaign-wise?

[The Lord Marbury]

Hopefully the trends keep going in that direction until 2014... I remember that in 2010 the Left coalition had a lead early on which eroded throughout the campaign. Is Löfven competent, campaign-wise?

Well he has been criticised at times for being a bit anonymous and not giving clear positions on some policies, but some of that can be attributed to the fact that the Social Democrats haven't even held their national congress to decide political platforms for the coming years and the election. Technically Löfven hasn't been officially been elected leader either, which will happen during the congress in April.

But the key thing to remember is that despite this Löfven still has higher personal approvals than Sahlin and Juholt ever had and the qualities which Swedish voters most often tend to prefer when it comes to their PMs; stability and pragmatism, is something he projects in spades. The problem will only be getting a clear message to the voters, something which could be tricky for him considering that he's only been a real politician for a year or so. Though his past as a union man is also a bit of a plus, considering that because of it the voters has higher confidence in his skills when it comes to job creation. And it does look like he'll make good use of that, because in the past year the two issues he's been focusing the most on are jobs and education and it does appear to be working since he now has higher confidence in job creation than the sitting government (though not surprising, considering rising unemployment and youth unemployment approaching 25%). But wether it's enough to take him to Rosenbad is still too early to tell, but it's looking a whole lot better for the party than it did one and a half years ago.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, that's quite promising. I want to be optimistic and expect Sweden to come back to its glorious traditions.

[The Lord Marbury]

Well, that's quite promising. I want to be optimistic and expect Sweden to come back to its glorious traditions.

You and me both.

[Gustaf]

I would caution the left supporters that incumbent governments tend to gain votes during election campaigns in Sweden. I think C and KD are likely to make the threshold at the end of the day with support voting as well.

There are two main obstacles to the social democrats, as I see it. One is that they have to form a governing coalition. They're doing well now because people have forgotten V and MP. At some point that will come back to haunt them a bit. The second issue is that with the Sweden Democrats this strong it will be hard to form a left-wing government. I think it's easier for the right to handle it, especially as they were so close to an own majority.