The Big Bad Swedish Politics & News Thread

[Antonio the Sixth]

And he's [Fälldin] still alive. I met two of his grandkids at the Centre Youth Congress. ^^

Have Fälldin made any statements on what he thinks of the Centre Party of today (certainly much more right-wing than in his time)? And what is the feeling amongst older Centre members in general about the current direction of the party?

Nope, he's not made any statements about the party for a decade as far as I'm aware off. But he's very old and frail. Older Centre Party members have not been happy about the party's direction, but that's a given.

BTW, do the constituencies correspond to counties? Or portions of counties? Or groups of counties? Or is there no relationship at all?

They correspond to the counties, but the three most populus counties (Stockholm, Västra Götaland, and Skåne) are split into smaller constituencies.

Ah, I see. Makes sense.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Some more maps.
Skåne County this time. (General election results '02-'10)



2002:



2006:




2010:




The right-wing shift of suburban/exurban Malmö is really faciating.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

And as a bonus, while we're at Skåne, here is a map of SD support in Skåne.

[Tayya]

Ripping off Swedish Cheese, here is Stockholm County in 2002, 2006 and 2010:



2002 (Botkyrka marked with "fp" to signal the Liberals beating the Moderates)



2006



2010 (Yes, there is a 75%+ margin in Danderyd)

Look at the swings! 11 municpalities switched blocs in 2006, including Stockholm itself.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Great job

2010 (Yes, there is a 75%+ margin in Danderyd)

Lidingö isn't that far behind...

[Tayya]

Neither is Täby. Non-Swedes, can you find the upper-class suburbs we are speaking about? And can you find the immigrant-heavy municipalities?

[DC Al Fine]

Immigrant heavy areas are the ones that stayed Social Democrat all the way through. Are the upper middle class suburbs in Northeastern Stockholm?

[politicus]

Any particular reason the NW corner of Scania is so right wing? There are other rural areas in Scania that are far more balanced.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Any particular reason the NW corner of Scania is so right wing? There are other rural areas in Scania that are far more balanced.

Because it's the most beautiful place in all of Sweden, and it's not just me who thinks that.
Thus it's a very popular place to live or have a summer house,  which makes it very expensive, which means it's very wealthy.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Some non-riots related Swedish news:

Big Bipartisan Compromise on Free Schools

Six of the major parties today announced an agreement on the Swedish free school system. Free schools are privatly owned schools that are open to everyone and financed through vouchers.

The compromise means that it'll still be possible to run these schools for a profit, while introducing stricer regulation and quality control, more and increased sanctions and punishments when the system is abused.

A very good and common sense agreement all in all if you ask me.

SKOP poll

A new poll by SKOP. It was taken before the riots began, so I wouldn't give it much weight after the last days.

M: 28,5%
Fp: 5,8%
C: 4,2%
Kd: 3,7%
S: 34,2%
V: 5,4%
Mp: 9,9%
Sd: 6,6%


Alliance: 42,2%

Left-wing: 49,5%

Sweden Democrats: 6,6%

[Tayya]

In exactly one year, I will vote for the first time (except for the Church of Sweden elections this fall), in the elections to the European Parliament. The parties' line-ups are starting to take form.

The current Swedish MEPs are:

Left Party (GUE/NGL)
- Mikael Gustavsson (undeclared) (replaced Eva-Britt Svensson)

Social Democrats (S&D)
- Marita Ulvskog (undeclared)
- Olle Ludvigsson (undeclared)
- Åsa Westlund (retiring to run for the Riksdag)
- Göran Färm (retiring)
- Anna Hedh (undeclared)
- Jens Nilsson (undeclared)

Green Party (Greens/EFA)
- Carl Schlyter (retiring to run for the Riksdag)
- Isabella Lövin (running)

Pirate Party (Greens/EFA)
- Christian Engström (undeclared)
- Amelia Andersdotter (undeclared)

Centre Party (ALDE)
- Kent Johansson (undeclared) (replaced Lena Ek)

Liberal Party (ALDE)
- Marit Paulsen (undeclared)
- Olle Schmidt (retiring)
- Cecilia Wikström (undeclared)

Moderate Party (EPP)
- Gunnar Hökmark (running)
- Anna Ibrisagic (retiring)
- Christoffer Fjellner (running)
- Anna-Maria Corazza Bildt (running)

Christian Democrats (EPP)
- Alf Svensson (retiring)

The Moderate Party and Christian Democrats has held their advisory internal primary elections/straw polls.

Other noteworthy candidates to declare:

Christian Democrats - Lars Adaktusson (journalist)
Centre Party - Fredrick Federley (notable MP, more libertarian-leaning)
Social Democrats - Jytte Guteland (former Youth League chairperson)

[DC Al Fine]

Can someone explain what church elections are fought over?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Can someone explain what church elections are fought over?

I'd prefer not to. It's a national emberrassment.

Centre Party (ALDE)
- Kent Johansson (undeclared) (replaced Lena Ek)

The rumours I've heard in the party is that he'll indeed run again.

In exactly one year, I will vote for the first time (except for the Church of Sweden elections this fall), in the elections to the European Parliament.

The EP elections were my first election as well. Can't believe it's already been four years. >.< Where did all the time go?

[Leftbehind]

Big Bipartisan Compromise on Free Schools

Six of the major parties today announced an agreement on the Swedish free school system. Free schools are privatly owned schools that are open to everyone and financed through vouchers.

The compromise means that it'll still be possible to run these schools for a profit, while introducing stricer regulation and quality control, more and increased sanctions and punishments when the system is abused.

Urgh. Which six parties?

[Tayya]

Big Bipartisan Compromise on Free Schools

Six of the major parties today announced an agreement on the Swedish free school system. Free schools are privatly owned schools that are open to everyone and financed through vouchers.

The compromise means that it'll still be possible to run these schools for a profit, while introducing stricer regulation and quality control, more and increased sanctions and punishments when the system is abused.

Urgh. Which six parties?

The governing parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens... whose on-going congress just decided to include the phrase "we want to remove the commercially oriented actors from the market". Their membership isn't moving towards the centre as quickly as their leadership, which tends to show.

I wonder where they'd been if Mikaela Valtersson (who is currently a lobbyist for free schools) had been elected spokesperson instead of Åsa Romson.

@Swedish Cheese: What's the likelyhood that Kent J. will be booted by Federley on the basis of more personal vote? Is Johansson known among the Centre Party voters outside the capital?

[Leftbehind]

The governing parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens... whose on-going congress just decided to include the phrase "we want to remove the commercially oriented actors from the market". Their membership isn't moving towards the centre as quickly as their leadership, which tends to show.

Does 'centre' now encompass profiteering in education? Seems more accurate to describe the parties movement to the right, although signing bipartisan compromises like this does help enormously in it becoming the centre.

[You kip if you want to...]

The governing parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens... whose on-going congress just decided to include the phrase "we want to remove the commercially oriented actors from the market". Their membership isn't moving towards the centre as quickly as their leadership, which tends to show.

Does 'centre' now encompass profiteering in education?

The 'third way' is so ten years ago.

[Gustaf]

The centre and its predecessors were more loyal to Svenska kyrkan.  This difference can be seen in difference between Jönköpings län and Kronoborgs län.

Okay, but it doesn't quite explain the why. Somehow early peasant leaders must have been pro-establishment, maybe because they were chosen among the wealthier peasants? Also perhaps it was less anti-aristocratic than most peasant movements given that most Swedish peasant owned their own land.

The Swedish concept of frisinne http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisinne is a strange deviation from standard Liberalism and somewhat related to Grundtvigianism in Denmark (which is also a weird "ideology").

It's partly a question of timing. When politics started out you had Liberals v Conservatives. This division was similar to what I think it was in other places like England, with the Liberals tending to be pro-free trade, anti-military, progressive on social issues and associated with the evangelical movement. In those days, the evangelicals were often somewhat persecuted by the establishment, which heavily favoured the state church, so it made sense for liberals to support freedom of religion.

For natural reasons, the Liberals were otherwise typically associated with urban areas and the merchant class.

The Centre party started out as a party to look after the interests of the farmers and rural areas specifically. They've always been rather pragmatic and I don't think they had much philosophically in common with the religious types.

Incidentally, I believe the Liberals pushed for a high threshold to parliament back in the day to keep the Christian Democrats out, since they were threatening to steal one of their constituencies. Which, of course, is what ended up happening.

[Silent Hunter]

Fäldin is/was from Ångermanland (I read once his memoirs).

Doesn't he also appear in the novel "The Air Castle That Exploded"?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Since we've had maps for Stockholm (largest county) and Skåne (third largest county) it'd be unfair to leave Västra Götaland (second largest) out in the cold.*
So here's some more maps:



2002



2006



2010





I discovered three things from this:

1) Suburban/exurban Gothenburg swung heavily to the right in '10, just like happened in Malmö and Stockholm. It would not be incorrect to say that the big cities' suburban middle-class won the 2010 election for the Alliance.

2) This county has way too many municipalities.

3) Västra Götaland East has some of the strangest voting shifts and swings ever. Forget Gotland, this is the new place I can't understand. At all. 


*It's worth noting that 52,3% of the entire Swedish population lives in one of these three counties.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

@Swedish Cheese: What's the likelyhood that Kent J. will be booted by Federley on the basis of more personal vote? Is Johansson known among the Centre Party voters outside the capital?

No idea actually.
I wouldn't be too hopeful for Federley though. Hanna Wagenius is also running, so the young liberal/libertarian faction will be split, and needless to say Federley isn't much loved by the farmer/sane faction of the party.

Personally I wouldn't mind having him shipped off to Brussels, so he can stop being a national emberrasment to us.  

[Leftbehind]

The governing parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens... whose on-going congress just decided to include the phrase "we want to remove the commercially oriented actors from the market". Their membership isn't moving towards the centre as quickly as their leadership, which tends to show.

Does 'centre' now encompass profiteering in education?

The 'third way' is so ten years ago.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/may/31/free-schools-education

lol

[batmacumba]

Since we've had maps for Stockholm (largest county) and Skåne (third largest county) it'd be unfair to leave Västra Götaland (second largest) out in the cold.*

[...]

*It's worth noting that 52,3% of the entire Swedish population lives in one of these three counties.

It's also worth noting that 100% of the entire Swedish population lives in the cold.
Well, the month's over and the direct exchange between M and KD was a one-poll illusion. SD is ganing votes within the right.

I've organized the parties in a way that big changes on one side of the bar for each party do not impact the other side (i.e., trying to read the patterns of voting exchange). Critics will be wellcomed.

[Tayya]

So, the poll of all polls - Statistics Sweden's biannual poll - is coming on Tuesday.

Predictions, anyone?

Mine:

Social Democrats 34%
Moderates 28%
Sweden Democrats 9%
Green Party 8%
Left Party 6%
Liberal Party 6%
Centre Party 4%
Christian Democrats 3%

[politicus]

Social Democrats 33%
Moderates 30%
Sweden Democrats 10%
Green Party 8%
Left Party 6%
Liberal Party 5,5%
Centre Party 3,5%
Christian Democrats 3%