Sweden election 2022

[The Lord Marbury]

It's a little over a month left until the election and things appear to be heating up slowly but surely as the summer holidays are drawing to a close. The Moderates and Social Democrats have both just presented their main campaign posters ahead of the election.

The Moderates are going with the slogan "Nu får vi ordning på Sverige" (rough translation: "Let's get Sweden sorted out") and are emphasizing the agreements between the four parties on the right and the disagreements between the Red-Greens and the Centre Party in their posters. The posters have statements such as "In agreement that nuclear power delivers cheaper and greener electricity", followed by a large blue exclamation point supposedly to highlight that M, KD, SD and L are all agreed. Different posters have the same statement or different ones such as "In agreement on strict rules on immigration to manage the integration", followed by a large red question mark, surrounded by the letters S, C, V and MP to highlight those parties disagreements.

https://i.imgur.com/EQnSPVB.png

I'm really not sure if this will be a particularly successful campaign at attracting swing voters, but then again I'm not the target audience.

As expected the Social Democrats are placing Magdalena Andersson front and centre in the campaign due to her popularity, and they're clearly hoping that the campaign will become a bit of a presidential election where the choice is between her or Ulf Kristersson's leadership.

They're using the slogan "Vårt Sverige kan bättre"/"Tillsammans kan vi göra vårt Sverige bättre" ("Our Sweden can do better"/"Together we can make our Sweden better") which they've been using since the spring. The main political focus of the posters are increased pensions ("A pension you live on. Respect for those who have worked"), schools ("The school should be there for the children, not the owners") and tough on crime ("We're increasing sentences and recruiting more police officers").

https://i.imgur.com/cGzfuqI.png

[The Lord Marbury]

Here's Wikipedia's list/average of polls presently as we approach the actual election. If we treat the 4 aligned Right parties as one block, and their opposition as another - even though it isn't as formally linked - it is effectively a tied race. The issue is that MP/The Greens are below the threshold and if they don't make it in then its GG, Conservative majority barring any surprises. Maybe therefore S shouldn't be running such a personalistic campaign, since a presidential-style contest will lead to a percentage of voters within each camp migrating to the "presidential" candidates.

Perhaps. But the Social Democrats (along with C, if you count them as part of the same side) is the party with the best shot at winning over swing voters who might otherwise vote L or M. And given how close the polls are it'd be mad not to use Andersson's relative popularity even among some centre-right voters in an attempt to win them over. The Greens will probably be dragged over the line by centre-left voters voting strategically either way.

One thing that is somewhat interesting to note is that there's no mention of climate change on any Social Democratic posters or in the TV ad released today. Unlike the ad they released a few months ago, where it at least got a mention. I wonder if that could be because they want leave that issue to the Greens and not risk competing too much for the same voters in order to help them over the line.

BTW what will Ygeman suggestion to put a 50% cap on non-Nordic citizen in “vulnerable areas” have on the election?

https://de.topnews.media/2022/08/01/minister-calls-for-50-percent-cap-on-non-nordic-citizens-in-swedens-vulnerable-areas/

It'll further help the Social Democrats in their attempt to triangulate and neutralize rightwing attacks on immigration, integration and law and order. It could potentially move some voters from Social Democrats to the Greens or Left too, but they wouldn't be too fussed about that. But it's apparent that it's not something the Social Democrats are going place a lot of emphasis on, Ygeman has already partially walked the statement back by saying that it's something he's "open to discussing" but not something he's actually proposing at the moment.

[The Lord Marbury]

https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/fortroendet-for-regeringen-dalar-tydlig-trend/

Expressen and Sifo published the latest approval ratings for the government today. Government approval sits at 41%, down 2 since the last poll in July which means it's pretty much level with the situation before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which saw the government's approval briefly jump up to 53%.

They also published the latest party leader approvals, where Magdalena Andersson maintains her massive lead.

Magdalena Andersson (S): 59% (+1) [NET: +27]
Ulf Kristersson (M): 33% (-2) [NET: -11]
Jimmie Åkesson (SD): 29% (+1) [NET: -27]
Ebba Busch (KD): 27% (+1) [NET: -27]
Annie Lööf (C): 27% (+1) [NET: -29]
Johan Pehrson (L): 24% (+3) [NET: -3]
Nooshi Dadgostar (V): 22% (-) [NET: -25]
Per Bolund (MP): 10% (+1) [NET: -44]
Märta Stenevi (MP): 8% (-1) [NET: -51]

[The Lord Marbury]

Are the Swedish democrats still too toxic to be included in any possible goverment ?

Not really, I believe. The Moderates, Liberals and Christian Democrats have a "collaboration agreement" with SD and they have presented some conjoint policies. Not sure if they will be part of a coalition government, but SD will support a proposed Moderate PM and, unlike 2018, M-L-KD will accept that support.

Is there an english text of the collaboration agreement ? what kind of concession has SD won ?

There's no formal, far-reaching agreement where any party has already made concessions to the others. M, KD, L and SD all agree that Magdalena Andersson should be booted out of office and replaced by Ulf Kristersson, but beyond that there's no agreement other than on issues where the parties happen to align with one another.

They're not even in agreement on which parties should be part of the next government. KD wants a two-party coalition with just them and the Moderates, which also seems to be the latters first preference, though they could be open to include L. The Liberals definitely want a three party M-KD-L coalition that excludes SD, and SD wouldn't mind it if L fell below the threshold because it'd be easier to not have to work with them. All that we know is that SD probably won't be a part of a coalition government, but Jimmie Åkesson has made it very clear that he would need a written agreement with serious concessions before he lets Ulf Kristersson form a government dependent on his support.

[The Lord Marbury]

https://www.dn.se/sverige/annie-loof-vi-ar-beredda-att-sitta-i-en-s-regering/

Well she's finally gone and made it official. Annie Lööf has now said that her preferred Prime Minister is Magdalena Andersson. Obviously with a lot caveats about a future government needing to lean towards the centre ground of politics and the Left Party having as little influence as possible, but a lot of C members, including the youth league, are still very critical.

But she really didn't have much of a choice. C has lost 2-3% in opinion polls compared to last year, and most of those voters appear to have gone to the Social Democrats. If she's going to have any hope of winning some of those people back, tying herself closer to Andersson is probably the smart move.

[The Lord Marbury]

Some new campaign news today. Or definitely-not-a-campaign news, depending on your perspective.

Yesterday M, KD, SD and L announced a joint buss tour with a logo and the slogan "New Energy for Sweden", where their energy policy spokespersons will visit Sweden's nuclear power plants and have public meetings and town halls with voters in nearby towns and cities.

However this naturally sparked a great deal of criticism within the Liberals, both among those who are still critical of the party working with SD and those who begrudgingly tolerate it. Several of the critics have pointed out how this is really killing morale among rank and file members towards the end of the campaign. So today Johan Pehrson was quick go out and downplay the whole affair, pointing out how it was merely a joint information gathering visit at a nuclear power plant. And L's energy policy spokesperson made clear that he would only be able to join them for the visit at the nuclear power plant and not the rest of the trip for "personal reasons". 

A few hours later the Sweden Democrats' official twitter account proudly tweeted that the four parties' first joint campaign would start tomorrow.

But that's not the most important part of the whole story. The most important part would be why in the hell they designed a logo for the campaign nuclear power plant visit that looks like it belongs to some IT company that went bust during the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s?

https://twitter.com/VictorHarju/status/1561394747830304773

[The Lord Marbury]

The Social Democrats are just openly trolling the Moderates at this point. Apparently they've requested that SVT and TV4 replace Kristersson with Åkesson in the scheduled one-on-one debates with Magdalena Andersson since SD have surpassed M in several recent polls.

Of course the requests were turned down, but it still made some headlines. Not a bad way to remind wavering voters who don't like SD of how much influence the party will have if the blue bloc gets a majority.

[The Lord Marbury]

Apparently Radio Sweden just held an English language debate between the eight parliamentary parties. Unsurprisingly none of the party leaders showed up, but the parties did send some other leading figures such as C, V and KD which sent their economic policy spokespersons. It's available to watch here for those who are interested: https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/radio-sweden-election-debate-live

Oh and former Liberal leader Bengt Westerberg has just come out and said that he's going to vote for the Centre Party in the election. Not particularly surprising considering that he already said that he wouldn't vote L when a snap election looked likely last year.

[The Lord Marbury]

Apparently Radio Sweden just held an English language debate between the eight parliamentary parties. Unsurprisingly none of the party leaders showed up, but the parties did send some other leading figures such as C, V and KD which sent their economic policy spokespersons. It's available to watch here for those who are interested: https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/radio-sweden-election-debate-live

Oh and former Liberal leader Bengt Westerberg has just come out and said that he's going to vote for the Centre Party in the election. Not particularly surprising considering that he already said that he wouldn't vote L when a snap election looked likely last year.

Why, because of the Liberals being willing to form a government with SD support?

Yeah pretty much. Westerberg has been very critical of any kind of cooperation with SD and supportive of some kind of grand coalition including both the Social Democrats and the Moderates for several years. He's also known for walking out of a TV studio in protest during SVT's election night coverage in 1991 when he was interviewed along with other centre-right leaders and the leaders of the right-wing populist New Democracy party were about to join them on the couch. So his distaste for the far-right is well documented and this wasn't unexpected.

[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.

[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.

[The Lord Marbury]

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

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.

Speaking of which, what is Gothenburg normally like politically/demographically speaking? Stockholm and Malmö I think I've got a good handle on, but Gothenburg always seems to run closer to the national average and I'm not really sure why?

Well I wouldn't call myself much of an expert, I've only lived here for four years. But as a port city that's the home of major exporting companies like Volvo and SKF, Gothenburg has always been very international and trade-oriented, with a strong working class character. This has historically made the city more favourable toward the Social Democrats than for example Stockholm, with S managing to stay in power during the 8 years of Alliance government nationally.

Demographically the city is still somewhat working class in character, but it has lessened over the years, starting with the wave of shipyard closures in 1970s. And of course it has a significant immigrant population and is sadly very segregated like the two other major cities, with most immigrants or people with immigrant backgrounds concentrated in "million programme" suburbs built during the 60s and 70s.

The city also has a very strong liberal streak, with Liberals tending to do better in the city than they do nationally. However the brand of liberalism historically associated with the Liberals in Gothenburg, the "Gothenburg liberalism", is generally seen to be more on the social liberal wing of the Liberals. Now that the Liberals are firmly saying that they're willing to work with SD, it'll be interesting to see what happens to their vote share in the city. The Centre Party has never had a particularly strong presence here, in fact prior to the last election they hadn't managed to win a seat on the council since 2006. So it will be interesting to see how they fare this time, and if they'll manage to win over some disillusioned former Liberals.

[The Lord Marbury]

I thought I should post the result of the exit poll from the last election in comparison to the actual final result. Just as a reminder of how cautiously we should treat the upcoming exit poll, especially considering how close the polls are.

SVT's 2018 exit poll - actual election result in bold - (difference)
Social Democrats: 26.2% - 28.3% (+2.1)
Moderate: 17.8% - 19.8% (+2)
Sweden Democrats: 19.2% - 17.5% (-1.7)
Centre: 8.9% - 8.6% (-0.3)
Left: 9% - 8% (-1)
Christian Democrats: 7.4% - 6.3% (-1.1)
Liberals: 5.4% - 5.5% (+0.1)
Green: 4.2% - 4.4% (+0.2)

TV4 will also publish an election day poll 15 minutes before polls close at 19.45, but this is not an exit poll where people have been asked what they voted for outside polling stations. It's still an opinion poll, conducted with a combination of phone and online interviews.

[The Lord Marbury]

Where do Swedish parties stand on nuclear energy?

M, KD, L and SD are in favour of building new nuclear power stations and of using tax payer money to fund them, having proposed state credit guarantees of 400 billion SEK to fund them.

S and C aren't opposed to new nuclear power stations but they're sceptical of paying for them with tax payer money. But they haven't completely ruled it out either since both parties want to see some kind of broad cross-bloc agreement on energy policy. C also wants to invest in existing reactors to increase their power production.

V are opposed to new nuclear power stations, they say it's too costly, takes too much time and it would be more effective to spend money on renewables.

MP are (as to be expected) the most opposed to nuclear energy. They do stand behind the law which allows for energy companies to build new nuclear power stations on sites of existing ones if they wish so. But they've also said that they couldn't sit in a government which takes the decision to start up a new reactor.

[The Lord Marbury]

Is there anything with English subtitles?

No, but you can follow The Local's live blog coverage in English.
https://www.thelocal.se/20220911/swedish-election-live-blog/

[The Lord Marbury]

Which channel coverage is better? TV4 or SVT?

I prefer SVT. They generally tend to have less focus on drama, more focus on facts and numbers. And as an added bonus there's no commercial breaks.

[The Lord Marbury]

Genuine question,
There were talks about an alliance between the social democrats and the far right in Denmark. Could that happen in Sweden in the future?

I just can't see it happening. The share of the population that are immigrants or have an immigrant bakground is much larger in Sweden compared to Denmark, and they are a key part of the voting base of the Social Democrats. Joining forces with the far right just would not work, they'd lose both those voters and the middle class voters who vote for them because they don't want to see the far right in power.

[The Lord Marbury]

Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, the polling expert on SVT's election night, is currently predicting that turnout will end up around 83%. Which would be a drop from the 87% seen in 2018.

[The Lord Marbury]

Aftonbladet has a neat election map, all the way down to precinct level.

Thanks for posting this, cool map!

Now I'm curious why The Left / V does so well in downtown Malmö... They get upwards of 45% in some places which is completely out of sync with other urban Swedish areas.

They always get a lot of votes from young urban progressives. In Malmö those votes would be coming from the Möllevången area, in Gothenburg it's Majorna and in Stockholm it's Södermalm.

[The Lord Marbury]

I'm a bit baffled by the decision to appoint Tobias Billström Foreign Minister. I understand that Carl Bildt supposedly turned down the job, but the Moderates did have many far more qualified candidates, such as Hans Wallmark, Karin Enström or Henrik Landerholm. As far as I'm aware Billström has never been particularly involved with or shown any great deal of interest in foreign policy, and if I had to choose one word to describe him it wouldn't be "diplomatic".

In fact I think he's the first FM since Laila Freivalds back in the mid-2000s to not be considered a foreign policy-oriented politician before his appointment.

It all comes across as a post that was given to him to satisfy internal factions within the Moderates and reward him for years of loyal service. Which is a bit peculiar considering the current geopolitical situation.

[The Lord Marbury]

23 ministers plus the PM, isn't that too much? I assume that each minister will get one or two secretaries?

It's the same number of ministers that all governments have had at their formation since 2010 (bar Andersson's cabinet which had 22 ministers + the PM). At the time when Reinfeldt appointed so many ministers in 2010 it was somewhat criticized and seen as a way of compensating the junior coalition parties who on account of their size would've ended up with fewer ministers otherwise. But the size seems to have stuck around, probably due to similar considerations taken in the formation of the Social Democrat-Green coalition.

Prior to 2010 Swedish governments generally tended to have somewhere between 18-22 ministers, so it's not exactly a massive increase either.