Swedish prime ministers - Tage Erlander is the survivor!

[Proud Lieberal from Northeast]

I want to be a hack!

Fredrik Reinfeldt

[Nhoj]

Goran Persson

[politicus]

Result of round 8

I change my vote to Goran Persson in order to avoid a coin toss.

Persson eliminated.

Round 9:

Nils Eden, once more

[Nhoj]

Nils Eden

[JulioMadrid]

Fredrik Reinfeldt

[politicus]

Result of round 9:

Eden eliminated

Round 10, normal round.

We are down to the Top 10 now and its getting harder! The 4 remaining Social Democrats are giants of Swedish politics and de Geer is the founder of modern Sweden. Themptander was an unusually capable PM. Staaf and Lindman played important parts in securing democracy (in very different ways).

Reinfeldt could be a possibility, but the fair thing to do would be to eliminate Hammarskjold first. So that's my bid. After all Reinfeldt did break the Social Democrats monopoly on power by creating a modern brand of "welfare Conservatism", improved the economy in a tough international economic climate and has secured important reforms.

[Nhoj]

Hammarskjold

[Edu]

Hjalmar Hammarskjold

[JulioMadrid]

Fredrik Reinfeldt

[politicus]

Result of round 10

Hammarskjold 3
Reinfeldt 1

Hjalmar Hammarskjold is eliminated.

Round 11, normal round

Fredrik Reinfeldt, a capable and pretty successful PM, but he is up against the big boys now, so its time to go Freddie.

[JulioMadrid]

Fredrik Reinfeldt

[Nhoj]

Fredrik Reinfeldt

[politicus]

Result of round 11

Fredrik Reinfeldt eliminated 3-0. A quick round, but the regulars had voted unanimously against him and there was no chance Freddie would have survived.

Round 12, normal round:

Robert Themptander

The alternative is Arvid Lindman and I think his historical role in anchoring the Swedish right on the democratic side of the political Gulf (bad metaphor, sorry...) is more important, than Themptander solving the defense question, and RT didn't secure free trade after all, even if he only lost on a technicality.

[Nhoj]

Robert Themptander

[Edu]

Robert Themptander

[politicus]

Result of round 12

Themptander is eliminated 3-0.

Round 13

Now its getting really hard. The top 7 of Swedish PMs are an impressive bunch.
But it has to be Lindman this time for me. Simply because the rest are so damn great. They either ruled Sweden for very long and successful terms or had tremendous international influence like "Branting of Europe". Palme did a little of both.
Both Lindman and Hansson supported eugenics, which counts against them in my book, but was common at the time.

I dislike de Geer for not helping Denmark in 1864 and Hansson for allowing German troop transports to Norway during WW2 and the sale of Swedish iron ore to the Germans. But avoiding war with Germany was the right thing to do for Sweden, so that doesn't make him a bad PM, just a cynic, like most politicians.

As a Scandinavian I cant vote against Staaff, who secured Norways peacefull split from Sweden in 1905. An inter-Scandinavian civil war at that time would have been horrible.
He was also "the poor mans advocate" whom the reactionaries and militarists hated so much they made asstrays portraying his skull. And he fought the anti-democrats with such vigor and laid the ground work for universal suffrage. Kind of the father of modern Swedish Liberalism too.

[Nhoj]

Lindman

[Edu]

Per Albin Hansson

To stop these unanimous votes

[politicus]

Result of round 13

Lindman 2
Per Albin Hansson 1

Lindman eliminated

Round 14, normal round

Hjalmar Branting. Great man on the international stage, but unsuccessful at home, where he lost power twice and failed to gain a majority for the Social Democrats (as everybody expected after the introduction of universal suffrage), also failed to pass labour protection legislation. Had the shortest term in office of the remaining PMs.

I dislike Hansson the most of the remaining PMs, but since he was the founder of "the Swedish model" and historians generally consider him the greatest PM Sweden ever had, it would be hackish to  vote him out now. PAH needs to be in the final four.

[Californian Tony]

OK, Branting.

[Nhoj]

Branting

[Gustaf]

Lindman had one great quality - he made a very firm stand against national socialism within the Swedish right, to the point of personally pretty much destroying the party youth organization which had turned Nazi.

Anyway, for this round it has to be Sweden's most overrated prime minister: Olof Palme, the least successful SAP leader until Mona Sahlin, who brought the country to economic disaster and presided over some of the most disgraceful lies by any Swedish government ever.

[JulioMadrid]

Branting

[politicus]

Result of round 14

Branting 4
Palme 1

Branting eliminated

Round 15, normal round

My vote: Olof Palme

Defender of the third world with high international profile, but bad economic management at home. Lost power in 1976 for the first time in 40 years and can be said to have squandered Erlanders inheritance.

This may be influenced by the fact, that I simply like Staaff too much to eliminate him, so do some research on him, if you wanna be fair.

[Edu]

Ok, fine

Olof Palme