Sweden election 2022

[Vosem]

What is the "raison d'etre" of the Liberals in Sweden? What do they stand for that isn't already amply covered either by the Centre Party or the Moderates?

At one time they billed themselves as a socially liberal middle of the road party that would appeal to teachers and intellectuals - but now they have decided to support a government dependent on and at the beck and call of the neo-Nazis in SD - so they are now basically identical to the Moderates. Why do they exist at all?

The impression I get is still kinda serving that very small base of those too progressive for any other Right party, to fiscally conservative for C or M. But the real reason for existing still is to just get over the threshold. The right as a whole can't see them waste 2% of the vote, as polls during the off-season these days say, so voters act tactically.

I can understand why some people might still vote for the Liberals to keep them above the 4% hurdle...but my question is why do they exist at all? Why don't they just fold as a party? If the reason for them to exist is to give socially liberal but fiscally conservative people a party to vote for - doesn't the Centre party already offer that and C is not selling its soul by agreeing to the formation of a government that includes neo-Nazis.

I think I would probably have voted L at this election (but maybe M, not sure), but the answer to your question is that political parties virtually never fold; it's the same as why the New Democrats and Liberals in Canada don't merge. L has a history going back to 1902, and at this point there are entire generations that have spent their whole lives in the party; it's not going to go away that easily. Also, it's long since been observed in politics that the whole is never as great as the sum of its parts; two parties merging always end up with less support than the two would separately, in pretty much any nation. (Except Italy). Socially liberal but fiscally conservative politics in general would be weaker if L decided to merge into C or M.

[Vosem]

Looking at the election results, does anyone see them as an endorsement (or not) of Sweden's decision to join NATO earlier this summer?  Or is that not a factor?

The two parties that switched positions -- mainstream left Social Democrats and far-right populist Sweden Democrats, who were anti-NATO before 2022 but became pro-NATO in 2022 -- both made large gains, so you could take the results as an endorsement of the decision, but it wasn't a key difference between the blocs and I don't think the campaign was 'about' that call in any sense.

[Vosem]

Asking again:

Do absentees usually lean one way or the other in Sweden?

A very long time ago they tended to lean right (having changed the result in 1979 from a left-wing victory to a right-wing one). I'm not sure about more recent elections, though.

[Vosem]

For the long-term prospects Swedish politics, it's probably better to have a razor-thin right-wing coalition of chaos shambling around for a while, giving voter a chance to come back to their senses while minimizing the risk of far-right policies being enacted. Unfortunately, this isn't happening in a vacuum, and having a party that likely got funding and support to Putin (even if now they're posturing as pro-NATO) in government isn't exactly a great sign. Oof course there's a far bigger domino piece about to fall...

Isn't posturing as pro-NATO (and 'voting for admission' seems like much more than posturing) rather more than V is willing to do?

I think you're probably right regarding a narrow government of L and SD being more chaotic than a narrow government of C and V -- no party besides SD really has the same pattern of sloughing off a few independents every term. It's probably the case that the M government will in a few years end up relying on tactical support from C (or for that matter S) to stay in power.

(OTOH, I don't think there's a reason to think a 10-seat majority relying on L and SD would be more chaotic than a 1-seat majority relying on C and V, and -- while generational shifts can be tricky to rely on -- it seems like S is way, way weaker with the youth, while the stronger parties are M most of all, SD, and V. Probably frictions within the right are declining and within the left are growing, even if the former are much higher at present.)