Sweden election 2022

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

- Ebba Busch (KD) said in an SVT interview said that she wants to exclude SD and L from government in the event that the centre-right wins. This is very interesting, as SD is clearly demanding positions of power for his party (e.g. chairmanships, committee powers, inclusion in negotiations), and L clearly wants to be in government while also excluding SD. It also seems that despite L's rightward turn and new leadership, they have not yet re-earned the trust they lost with the January Agreement of 2019. It also is interesting because the polling share of M + KD is about equal to SD (SD is surging at M and KD's expense) and if SD is larger than those two combined, they lose a lot of their negotiating power and it will be seen as unreasonable to exclude SD from government and so much influence.

A right-wing government excluding L and SD is just KD and M, who together are only polling at only 25%. Even if you add C they're only at 33%. And KD is one of the smallest parties. Why does the junior partner in any potential coalition think it's in any position to dictate terms to the major parties?

Now you have also figured out why the government formation process will be brutal on the right as well should they win, everyone wants their cake and to eat it too

[Aurelius]

- Ebba Busch (KD) said in an SVT interview said that she wants to exclude SD and L from government in the event that the centre-right wins. This is very interesting, as SD is clearly demanding positions of power for his party (e.g. chairmanships, committee powers, inclusion in negotiations), and L clearly wants to be in government while also excluding SD. It also seems that despite L's rightward turn and new leadership, they have not yet re-earned the trust they lost with the January Agreement of 2019. It also is interesting because the polling share of M + KD is about equal to SD (SD is surging at M and KD's expense) and if SD is larger than those two combined, they lose a lot of their negotiating power and it will be seen as unreasonable to exclude SD from government and so much influence.

A right-wing government excluding L and SD is just KD and M, who together are only polling at only 25%. Even if you add C they're only at 33%. And KD is one of the smallest parties. Why does the junior partner in any potential coalition think it's in any position to dictate terms to the major parties?

Now you have also figured out why the government formation process will be brutal on the right as well should they win, everyone wants their cake and to eat it too

Yep, that's for sure.

When people in Sweden talk about a center-right coalition, is MP included or is it just C+L+M+KD(+SD)? Or just L+M+KD(+SD)?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The election is only one week and one day away now. Wow.

[The Lord Marbury]

- Ebba Busch (KD) said in an SVT interview said that she wants to exclude SD and L from government in the event that the centre-right wins. This is very interesting, as SD is clearly demanding positions of power for his party (e.g. chairmanships, committee powers, inclusion in negotiations), and L clearly wants to be in government while also excluding SD. It also seems that despite L's rightward turn and new leadership, they have not yet re-earned the trust they lost with the January Agreement of 2019. It also is interesting because the polling share of M + KD is about equal to SD (SD is surging at M and KD's expense) and if SD is larger than those two combined, they lose a lot of their negotiating power and it will be seen as unreasonable to exclude SD from government and so much influence.

A right-wing government excluding L and SD is just KD and M, who together are only polling at only 25%. Even if you add C they're only at 33%. And KD is one of the smallest parties. Why does the junior partner in any potential coalition think it's in any position to dictate terms to the major parties?

Now you have also figured out why the government formation process will be brutal on the right as well should they win, everyone wants their cake and to eat it too

Yep, that's for sure.

When people in Sweden talk about a center-right coalition, is MP included or is it just C+L+M+KD(+SD)? Or just L+M+KD(+SD)?

It's pretty much just L+M+KD+SD now. The idea of C+L+M+KD or MP+C+L+M+KD is very much alive on the regional or municipal level, but those coalition options are definitely dead on the national level. Not least because they'd be nowhere near a majority.

[The Lord Marbury]

5 days out from election day and here's some polls.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1567054757876928514

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1567057533285662722

Polling has been pretty erratic during the past weeks, with Novus' polls especially showing some peculiar swings where the right seems to lead during the week but it swings back towards the left during the weekends. But most polls seem to show a tiny lead for the parties supporting Magdalena Andersson as PM, well within the margin of error. So this election is definitely going to be a nail-biter. Pretty much every poll also show the Moderates as the second largest party in the opposition, behind the Sweden Democrats. Something which no doubt brings a great deal of anxiety to Moderate campaigners.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Polls 'n stuff:

national election by age group


Red-Greens get about 41% of the vote amongst 18-29 year olds, adding C gives you 54% for the parties for Andersson.


Stockholm Region polling:


S+V+Mp = 48,8% (the threshold for the regional election is 3% so Mp barely survives), this would be a Red-Green majority
+C = 54,1%

Alliansen = 38,5%
+ Mp (the current governing constellation) = 41,6%

Alliansen + SD = 48,7%

Conservative bloc = 43,4%


Good infographic on the dilemma that Kristersson faces should the conservative bloc get a majority:



Polling errors over the past few elections:


S, SD, and M are consistently underestimated compared to where they end up.

V, L, and Mp consistently overestimated

[If my soul was made of stone]

To think the olds wasted the '90s dogpiling on the boomers when it was Gen X that we really had to fear...

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Anywho, here are my personal thoughts on this election:

I am really disappointed in this election. The discourse has been entirely negative, with the parties simultaneously signalling how much they hate SD while also becoming like the party in every way.

The top issue of this election, per the voters, is healthcare, yet so little attention has been dedicated to it at the national level. There has been no discussion of housing policy other than "segregation bad". Glad we all agree on that, but can we address one of the root problems which is housing affordability and availability? Anyone? I have met up with friends for dinner and drinks over the past week and all of them, to a person, say that while they make objectively very good salaries, they can barely save any money because of how insane rents are. Even in the suburbs, rents are just totally out of control.  

Every party is engaging in cheap populism and performative Tough On Crime^TM policies to the point of absurdity, so that it feels like the primary division in this election is who can criminalize children the most (e.g. rapid testing children for ADHD in schools or forcing them to scrub toilets to humiliate them out of being criminals, because apparently that works). There was an exposé in Aftonbladet recently about how badly the drive to get 10,000 new police officers is going, with the reduced standards for admittance to the police academy creating a mockery of the police as an institution despite the previous warnings of the police academy and higher-level officials warning of exactly this situation.

There is a total lack of self-reflection in Swedish discourse on how Sweden's society, culture, and economy actively work against integration of immigrants and actively harm even Swedes themselves. Instead the discourse is basically "Why are foreigners so bad and responsible for everything wrong in the world?". Clearly, the solution is just to beat people over the head until they stop being baddies.

I am also incredibly disappointed in my party, Socialdemokraterna. With the election film from the spring, I was hopeful for a positive campaign focused on welfare, the climate, defense, Andersson herself, and a constructive policy on crime and segregation. Instead S is playing entirely on SD's turf, and one minister even proposed ethnic quotas on neighborhoods. First of all, who even asked for that, and second of all, how do they even plan to make that work? Have banks deny people loans by doing an ethnicity check on buyers and the neighborhood? I am tired of politicians openly pondering questionable policies and casually discussing people as if they were cattle to be moved around as one pleases when they truly have no desire to follow through with it, and if it's even workable or legally possible in the first place. Why even vote S in the first place when you can just vote for SD then?

The Moderates' campaign is also really lackluster compared to 2018, when they campaigned on their idea of the New Swedish Model (den nya svensk modellen). As I discussed earlier, their economic platform is no longer about making labor markets work for the unemployed, but just whining about petrol taxes. While I agree with them on the nuclear issue, it will take what, 8-10 years to build new nuclear reactors? When the electricity crisis is happening NOW. They have absolutely no comprehensive vision for Sweden, just a random smörgåsbord of one-off policies. We will make law & order in Sweden. How will we do that? By making law & order.

The campaigns of S, L, C, Mp, etc. basically all seem to boil down to "SD is a racist party", as it has been since 2010. Okay, we've heard this exact same line for 12 years, it's getting a bit old now. It's true, but perhaps explain why their policies are so bad and how they are snakes in populist clothing. In 2018, S launched a campaign micro-targeting their working class voters to remind them that SD increasingly votes like a right-wing party on welfare topics, and it was very effective. This year......nothing, even though it's more clear than ever that SD is willing to govern as M-lite if they get their immigration agenda through.

I actually have to hand it to V for having a more compelling platform and saying they will stand up to Annie Lööf, Thatcherite Queen, and her attempts to push rainbow capitalism onto Sweden and further shred the welfare state and workplace protections with a chainsaw. Generally I dislike left-left parties but it's pretty clear that V is just the left-wing of S nowadays. I really am hoping for a strong V result this year to provide a powerful counter-balance to any attempts that S may have to conceded too much to C like what happened in 2019 and 2021.

I am actually pretty pleased with my local S-chapter in terms of their municipal campaign, with a laser focus on issues such as housing, education, elder care, and parks. The Stockholm Region chapter of S is also running a strong, healthcare-focused campaign, and it really seems to be working. So not all is lost, but the national campaign is a major disappointment.

Sorry that this was a bit of a rambling post, but this is a really, really disappointing election in terms of actual policy debate and proposals considering how bad things in Sweden have gotten with housing, healthcare, crime, and the geo-political + economic outlook.

I would love to hear the native Swedes' opinions on this.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

As far as I can tell from the outside, the most powerful force in Swedish politics at the moment is the desire to become a bit more like Denmark.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

As far as I can tell from the outside, the most powerful force in Swedish politics at the moment is the desire to become a bit more like Denmark.

The "ethnic quotas in neighbourhoods" comment especially could only have two possible origins and I somehow doubt Swedish politicians have a Singapore fetish...

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I would love to hear the native Swedes' opinions on this.

As the local forum representative of Swedish rainbow capitalist Thatcherite queens, I'll say that I share your view that it has been a very disappointing campaign for some of the same reasons as you list.

Healthcare has always been listed by the voters as the number one issue in every single Swedish election campaign I have experienced and every single election no one actually cares about healthcare and base their vote on it. People ranking healthcare as their most important issue is sort of like people wishing for peace on earth for Christmas, before wishing for their real gifts. You might as well just get used to that.

Otherwise, I have to say I'm very surprised how inefficient and weak the Social Democratic campaign has been. Basically, I thought they had already won this election back in the spring after Magdalena Andersson handled Ukraine very well and the Social Democrats had returned to their old recipe for success, being the party that advances social reform, protects the welfare system and still takes responsibility for the country and have responsible economic policies and spends on defense and are tough on crime.

However, for some reason they completely dropped the ball. I'm not even sure when and why, but it's quite clear they got panic and now basically have nothing to bring to the table but the same tactic that they used in 2018: "The Sweden Democrats are bad, vote for us to stop them." Granted, that's the reason they managed to win last time, so it might be just enough to save them this time as well.

Honestly though, not a single party has a clear, popular and efficient campaign message this election year. It's just a series of silly proposals on how to lower electricity prices and be mean to immigrants coupled with fear-mongering about other parties; S, MP and C fear-mongering about SD; V fear-mongering about C; M and SD fear-mongering about MP; and finally L fear-mongering about V and for the strangest reasons C.

Unfortunately, once again the Sweden Democrats looks like they'll be the big winners of the election. With everyone acting like terrible idiots, it's quite easy for them to hide the fact that they're terrible idiots.

As I've written before the defining issue of this election seems to be energy prices and crime. People are genuinely worried about having to sell their homes because they won't be able to pay electricity bills this winter and some people I know will vote for the centre-right for the first time in their lives because of it. Now, thankfully this is countered by former centre-right voters as myself for the first time ever voting for a left-wing government because we can't stand the Sweden Democrats and the horrible racist populist Trumpian mess that the Moderates and Christian Democrats have turned into over the last few years.

The question I'm asking myself leading into Sunday is, have the Social Democrats been able to win back enough worried home owners with their late entry into the energy price debate to salvage this and are the opposition to the Sweden Democrats strong enough to keep people from delivering a victory to the centre-right.

It might all be for naught though if the Greens or Liberals end up crashing below the floor...

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

As far as I can tell from the outside, the most powerful force in Swedish politics at the moment is the desire to become a bit more like Denmark.

Swedish politics are basically Danish politics ten years later and dumber.

To paraphrase Marx: Scandinavian politics repeats itself, first as Danish tragedy, second as Swedish farce.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

As far as I can tell from the outside, the most powerful force in Swedish politics at the moment is the desire to become a bit more like Denmark.

The "ethnic quotas in neighbourhoods" comment especially could only have two possible origins and I somehow doubt Swedish politicians have a Singapore fetish...

Well i've met a few swedes who do, but they live in singapore so...

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

24 hours from now we will (most likely) know the (overall) result of the election, here are some final things to share.


Breakdown of the electorate by age, gender, first timers, voters abroad:


Party election budgets in Swedish Kronor:


(i like how S, C, and L didn't even bother adjusting their budgets for inflation and KD's actually declined in nominal terms)

Final polling averages indicate a statistical tie with an ultra-thin majority for the Red-Greens + Centre; however since votes are allocated proportionately on the regional level, it will be interesting to see how the votes falling in each of the 29 electoral districts could affect the ultimate outcome (e.g. the Alliansen would have gotten an outright majority in 2010 had just a few hundred votes in two districts gone differently to get them from 173 seats to 175 seats).

The live coverage and counting will almost certainly be like 2018, where the smallest shifts back and forth cause each bloc to lead by a seat or two throughout the night.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

My last pre-election prediction this morning is that I think this will be the Trends Are Real election of Sweden. The centre-left will increase their its support in the big three cities as well as in student towns like Uppsala and Lund, while the rest of the country swing more to the right than four years ago.

[If my soul was made of stone]

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Yeah if i can be honest, i think the right will win by like 1 or 2 seats. They have the momentum and the election has been fought entirely on their turf. The left just saying RACIST RACIST over and over again is stale, and they have not put out a positive message as discussed above.

That doesn't necessarily mean the right deserves to win, however. They also ran a sh**t campaign with zero comprehensive vision for the future.

TL;DR - the vibes are off

[jaichind]

Standard questions of
a) When do polls close
b) live stream for exit polls and count
c) links to live results

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

One of the annoying things about Swedish elections is they put all their elections on the same day, so municipal elections are overshadowed. With that in mind, anything interesting predicated at the local/regional level?

[The Lord Marbury]

Standard questions of
a) When do polls close
b) live stream for exit polls and count
c) links to live results

a) 20.00 CET
b) https://www.svtplay.se/val-2022-valvakan
c) https://resultat.val.se/val2022/prel/RD/rike

One of the annoying things about Swedish elections is they put all their elections on the same day, so municipal elections are overshadowed. With that in mind, anything interesting predicated at the local/regional level?

There's a lot of talk about the local elections in Stockholm, both on the regional and municipal level.

In Region Stockholm the four old Alliance parties M, KD, L and C have been in power for 16 years, with MP added to the coalition after the last election. They and their Regional Commissioner Irene Svenonius (M) have been heavily criticised for the way they have run the healthcare system for several years now, and it looks like the Social Democrats is likely to benefit. With recent polling showing them surpassing M as the largest party, and possibly within reach of getting a majority with V and MP.

In the municipality the same Alliance+Green coalition have been in power since the last election, but polls there also show a major collapse, with the Moderate Party down around 16% and actually within the margin of error of being overtaken by the Left as the second largest party. To put things into perspective, Stockholm used to be a real stronghold for the Moderates. Back in 2006 when the party got 26% in the national election, 37% of the voters in Stockholm voted for them in the local elections.

In my city, Gothenburg, the four Alliance parties have been governing in a very weak minority coalition with only 24 out of 81 seats ever since the last election. This is due to it producing an unusually complicated result due to a new single issue party, the Democrats, getting 17% of the vote after running on a platform of stopping the West Link rail tunnel currently under construction. It looks like they will still be a factor on the council after this election, but reduced by about 10% since the main issue they ran on last time is pretty much dead with the tunnel is so close to completion. Polls have shown the Social Democrats gaining and within reach of a majority alongside V, MP and the Feminist Initiative (should the latter get past the threshold). But the question remains how easy it will be for them to work together since there's been quite a bit of friction between S and the other three after their previous coalition broke apart following the last election.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Polls have shown the Social Democrats gaining and within reach of a majority alongside V, MP and the Feminist Initiative (should the latter get past the threshold)

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

How much collaboration is there likely to be with Sweden Democrats at a regional/local level, especially in areas where they will probably take too many seats to be ignored (scania?)

[crals]

Speaking of the Feminist Initiative, it seems Gudrun Schyman left them to found yet another microparty named Climate Alliance. Was it all just a grift?

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Speaking of the Feminist Initiative, it seems Gudrun Schyman left them to found yet another microparty named Climate Alliance. Was it all just a grift?

I think she just genuinely enjoys creating new parties, like a serial entrepreneur but for political parties

[Mike88]

Standard questions of
a) When do polls close
b) live stream for exit polls and count
c) links to live results

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1568841517942427652

a) 7pm London time; 2pm New York time
b) SVT coverage: https://www.svtplay.se/video/36466051/val-2022-sverige-rostar?id=KZApJ9P
c) VAL, Electoral Commission, vote count: https://resultat.val.se/val2022/prel/RD/rike