Sweden election 2022

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Another argument for the Swedish system is that local elections on a different date than national elections would actually be "nationalized", because people want to use the election to punish or reward government parties.

You then end up with (for instance) a bunch of local administrations elected on the usual low turnouts in place for years solely because the electorate was happy or angry with the government at a particular moment, a moment that often passes within months of the local polls. Which isn't particularly healthy.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If it remains this tight you would actually get a result tonight, as unless procedures have changed there are all the absentee votes to count through the week.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If this does hold then the resulting government is not going to be a model of stability, even compared to the difficulties and drama of recent years.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I wouldn't exaggerate the importance of a fringe party that polled a tiny share nationally just because it polled solid percentages in some polling districts prone to very low turnouts.

The Moderates, on the other hand, indeed had a abysmal campaign and despite polling third, were still able to win 19% of the votes and the keys for the Prime Ministership.

Which isn't very healthy and is unlikely to work out terribly well for them, or for political stability generally. This would be a catastrophically weak government with essentially only a negative mandate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It was clear from looking at the commune-level results that there were a good deal of #trendz this election, and that’s confirmed by this exit poll. To summarise (brackets show changes from 2018):

White-collar workers:
S: 32% (+3)
M: 21% (-1)
SD: 15% (+3)

Blue-collar workers:
S: 32% (-2)
SD: 29% (+5)
M: 14% (-)

Self-employed and farmers:
M: 25% (-4)
SD: 24% (+1)
S: 19% (+6)

What’s very striking is that the SAP’s share among working class voters has declined at every election since 2002, when it stood at 50%, meaning there’s been a decline of almost 40% over those 20 years.

You do have to be a little careful when the differences between elections are quite small: an apparent shift of one or two points may not be 'real'. Another issue is that voting patterns are less uniform than in Swedish elections a couple of decades ago - there are differences between how comparable groups of people vote in Scania and (say) the north of the country that weren't an issue once. But in general I would say that, as is always the case with #trendz, a lot of it comes down to choices made by political actors (a point rather neatly confirmed by the comparisons to the regional election results as it happens). In this case the only actors to benefit are the SDs which is why it is a little mad that everyone else has played along, but no one ever said that politicians are an especially bright bunch as a whole.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The thing I'll add again is that the two 'blocks' are really not at all natural, even if they represent the present political reality.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Can we go back to discussing Sweden please? Thank you.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Andersson concedes and will submit her resignation tomorrow

Strategically correct. Behave in the most dignified manner possible so as to provide a useful contrast to the mess likely to follow and to be able to sweep in as saviours of stability etc. if it comes to that, as it may very well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No, as the right would never allow it. They obviously prefer being in government to not being so, and their base would hate them for it if they allowed the Social Democrats to remain in power.

The allure of ministerial cars is what it is. But, yes, fundamentally they have made their bed and will now have to lie in it, no matter how uncomfortable.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Would an S + M government be workable? Do they have much common ground to build on? (Though thinking about it, just dealing with one other party may seem more appealing for both than herding a ton of pissy smaller parties)

Relations between the two are more like relations between Labour and the Tories in Britain than between the SPD and the CDU-CSU in Germany.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

however, I was very interested to see the trends with the particular blocs over time (MP+V+S+C) vs (M+SD+KD+L) and I took it back to the 1998 elections just for reference.

You cannot do this meaningfully as those blocks are new. Until recently the arrangement was between a Socialist block (the SAP, V and the latterly the Greens) and what was always called the Bourgeois Block (M, C, KD, L). The SDs were at first a fringe party, and then a party with a substantial following with the status of parliamentary lepers.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Scandinavian societies before the emergence of the social democratic parties were as marked by brutal class divisions as Britain was, even if it manifested itself a little differently. They aren't like that now, not at all, but these things leave certain legacies. As such, relations between S and M are about as bad as between Labour and the Tories here and for the same reasons.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, it's a well-known fact that people associated with European far and extreme Right movements never attack synagogues.

Anyway, while the worst and most violent antisemitic incidents in Sweden over the past few decades have been carried out by immigrants, antisemitic remarks from Sweden Democrat politicians have been, to say the least, frequent and nothing serious has been done by the party to address this. While it is true that they're hardly the only Swedish party to have had senior figures say awful things about Jews over the past twenty years (a fact that should embarrass everyone else if you ask me, but that's another story), I do not think that lionizing them over this issue is honest or sensible.