The Big Bad Swedish Politics & News Thread

[politicus]

In the old days some Swedish Social Democrats voted Communist to keep the party above the 4% threshold. Those voters where known as "Comrade 4 percents". Will we see any Moderates doing the "Comrade 4%" thing and voting Centre or Christian Democrat this time? I could imagine at least tactical CD voting would be tempting. Any polls on this issue? Aka "If it looks like X will not make the threshold would you consider voting for them?".

[politicus]

I'm surprised to see there is so much Swedes here.
Hopefully, that will raise awareness towards Swedish politics, which aren't clear for many.
Myself, I have a tendency to confuse Danish and Swedish politics.

The main left party is having issues with the other left parties and the main right-wing party has a wierd name and plenty of small allies.

True. But at least according to some polls the main "left wing" party in Denmark will soon be a right wing populist party in a love/hate relationship with our main right wing party with the weird name. So maybe that partcular problem will soon disappear. Besides Danish party names are generally weirder than the Swedish ones. Calling the main right wing party "the Left"  (instead of just Moderates as in Sweden) and using "Radical Left" for our ultimate moderate heroes. Also Denmark has two so-called "Peoples Parties" polling below 5% (Conservative and Socialist), Sweden only has one and our most reactionarian party is called The Progress Party.

[politicus]

Wait, what are "companies in the welfare sector"? You mean insurance companies?

No companies managing welfare areas, like nursing homes.

[politicus]

This is starting to look like a Sweden General Discussion thread which kinda "starves" the Great Nordic Thread which is more and more becoming just a Denmark thread since nobody post about Finnish or Norwegian stuff (even if we do have a couple of Finnish posters and a Norwegian newbie).

Its fair enough if you think Sweden has enough news for its own thread, but maybe you should rename it to Sweden General Discussion then?

[politicus]

Its fair enough if you think Sweden has enough news for its own thread, but maybe you should rename it to Sweden General Discussion then?

We could PM Afleitch and ask him to rename them. I don't mind either way.

Well, I dunno. My idea when I made the GNT was that there werent going to be enough news from each of the Nordic countries to keep separate threads going, but if you combined them in one megathread there woud be. But it never really got off the ground.
I still dont think there is enough news for a separate Denmark thread, but now that you are so many Swedish posters, it seems there is enough Swedish news to keep a separate Sweden thread going. The problem is that it kinda kills the GNT since there isnt enough news from the rest of the Nordic countries to keep it going on a regular basis.

(but then again, maybe thats just a problem for me   )

[politicus]

I like giving Sweden its own thread.

Okay, lets ask afleitch to rename this one to Sweden General Discussion then and see what will happen with the GNT. Maybe this new guy, Lurker, will start posting some Norwegian news in it.

Will you do it Johan? (since you started the thread)

[politicus]

Well, I think renaming it should be Cheese's decision, no?

He already agreed to that (see his latest post).

I changed the entry in the GNT to this:

For discussion of issues regarding the Nordic countries Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

[politicus]

Posters can rename their own threads without moderator interventions.

OK, that makes it easier. Its a bit like the Kalmar Union with Sweden seceding long time after gaining de facto independence, just without all the wars.

I guess after Finland leaves we can rename the GNT the Former Oldenburg Monarchy Thread (just to confuse 90% of the non-Scandinavian posters).

[politicus]

I thought the SD's vote was pretty working class and would affect mostly the socialists, but It doesn't seem to be like this, at least in this cycle. The main voter flotation seems to be between the social democrats and moderates.

You see this movement of working class voters from SD to the main centre-right party in all Scandinavian countries.
Its the same in Denmark from SD to Venstre and in Norway from Arbeiderpartiet to Høyre. Many private employees in Scandinavia identify with their company and wants it to be as competitive as possible to avoid losing their jobs. Workers are also generally more attracted to centre-right positions on topics like law and order and reform of the public sector.

This effect might even be stronger in Sweden because they don't have a credible right wing populist party as in DK and Norway (the Sweden Democrats is more on a non-funny joke party).

[politicus]

A big part of it is due to demographics. Malmø has the highest share of ethnic minorities of any Scandinavian city and a lot of the crime problems related to badly integrated minority youth. Scania generally has a high immigrant population, whereas Northern Sweden has very few immigrants

Despite being Swedish for 350 years this region is also culturally closer to Denmark which might somehow explain the shared lack of adherence to the kind of political correctness, which restrains other Swedes from voting on right wing populists.
(this is of course highly debatable, but I think it has some merit to it)

[politicus]

It's worth noting that though it's true that SD has gained more from M than SAP, the difference (in 2010) was very small, and most SD voters are people who usually didn't turn out to vote.  

Compared to the Danish and Norwegian right wing populists you could call this the early phase of the party's development, the big prize in a Scandinavian context is getting your hands on disgruntled Social Democratic working class voters (incl retired working class people). If the SD can do this they can develop into a force comparable to DPP in Denmark or even PP in Norway (I know PPs Libertarian elements make them different, but their appeal to workers is the same).

SD still seems much less professional regarding communication and PR than their Scandinavian siblings and lack a charismatic leader, but with the huge ghetto problems with crime, jihadists, parallel societies etc. in the big Swedish cities there is a potential for them.

So the interesting thing is if they can start capturing Social Democratic core-voters like the DPP in Denmark. But I think they would need a new leadership and a more professional communications department to do this.

Swedish media is generally more hostile towards xenophobes/nationalists than Norwegian and Danish ones, so this makes it harder for them.

There used to be a perception that Sweden was somehow immune to right wing populism with its rational political culture and strong PC, but I think Sweden is being more "standard" in this respect today.

One other difference is that right wing extremism still has some Nazi-taint in Sweden, whereas its Danish (and to a lesser degree Norwegian) roots where in the national conservative right wing of our WW2 resistance movements. But this difference is not that important anymore.
 

[politicus]

It's worth noting that though it's true that SD has gained more from M than SAP, the difference (in 2010) was very small, and most SD voters are people who usually didn't turn out to vote.  

One other difference is that right wing extremism still has some Nazi-taint in Sweden, whereas its Danish (and to a lesser degree Norwegian) roots where in the national conservative right wing of our WW2 resistance movements. But this difference is not that important anymore.
 

That's very interesting. Could you give some more detail about the national conservative politics and how it morphed into PP/DPP?

Its a bit complex. Ill start with Norway:

The Norwegian PP dates back to "Anders Langes Party for strong limitation of taxes, public spending and interventions" (my transl.) founded in 1973 as an anti-tax, anti-EU protest movement.
Anders Lange was a bit of an oddball, kennel owner, publisher of The Dog Paper (about politics and dog breeding!), racist, apartheid supporter, Libertarian agitator and big fan of Ayn Rand and a folksy guy known for his love of egg knock.
This excentric man was an organizer for the conservative, anti-socialist Fatherland League in the 30s (with national hero Fridtjof Nansen as a co-founder) and helped hide resistance fighters and participated in illegal information/press work during the war. He was also briefly interned for hitting a Norwegian nazi.

AL died in 1974 allowing more normal people to take over ALP, among them Carl I. Hagen who build the movement into a strong party and renamed it to PP.

AL was joined by many with ties to the resistance movement, some of them extreme nationalists and racists, but most of them more "sane" conservatives disliking bureaucracy and the welfare state. So PP had a strong conservative "Norway first", euro-sceptic element from the beginning, later its more radical "tax-haters"/libertarians have been weeded out and its anti-immigration position has become slightly more moderate. The party is now a populist/conservative mix, with both fiscal and national conservatism being important.


Anders Lange with the egg knock

[politicus]

In Denmark a corporatist, anti-parliamentarian (some would say anti-democratic), nationalist party called Dansk Samling (Danish Unity) became an important part of the resistance movement. After the war this movement collapsed. But in 1983 old DU and national conservatives founded The Danish Association to protest a new liberal refugee law, with many former freedom fighters from the right wing of the resistance movement among its members.


Arne Sørensen, founder of Dansk Samling, not a fan of parliamentary democracy...

In 1973 tax lawyer and millionaire Mogens Glistrup founded an anti-tax, anti bureaucracy, anarchist/libertarian party called the Progressive Party getting 15,9% in the 1973 election. Glistrup turned racist/xenophobic in the 80s, but it wasnt part of his original platform. He went to jail for tax fraud in the early 80s and Pia Kjærsgaard, the founder of DPP, took over. Big "civil war" between her moderate "pianists" and the Glistrup loyalists after MG got out. She won, but got tired of fighting the "village idiots"/anarcho-libertarians. So in 1995 Kjærsgaard left and founded DPP which quickly dropped the Libertarian stuff and became more centrist/populist on economics. Many of her supporters had ties to the Danish Association and the ortodox Lutheran  and nationalist movement Tidehverv, which also had many old resistance fighters among its members.
So there is a connection of people and families with an identity as anti-Nazi and many members also have zionist connections and pro-Israeli sympathies.


Rev. Jesper Langballe, prominent member of Tidehverv, former MP for DPP. Son of the leader of the resistance movement in Randers (60.000 inhabitans) in Eastern Jutland and father of the rev. Christian Langballe, current MP for DPP.


Christian Langballe with Marie Krarup, MP for DPP and daughter of the rev. Søren Karup, the leader of Tidehverv and Jesper Langballes cousin!

DPP is very much a network of families, many of them with ties back to the resistance movement during WW2.

[politicus]

The leaders of the eight parliamentry parties met in a prime-time TV debate yesterday. I haven't had time to watch it yet, but apperently unemployment was the hot topic.

Most reviews seem to claim Löfvén and Lööf were the big winners. Not that I think it'll influence polling so far out of the election.   

I thought Annie Lööf was a walking disaster?

[politicus]

Interesting.

How would you rank the four centre-right parties in the alliance on a left-right socio-economic scale and a social issues scale, respectively?

(we have had Johans evaluation of their general position before, but I am curious about yours )

Any combo including Christian Democrats-Sweden Democrats looks odd because of refugee policy and development aid. Is CD willing to compromise on the humanitarian issues?

DPP-CD would be totally unthinkable in Denmark, but perhaps the Swedish CD is less principled.

[politicus]

Okay, the social liberal one is as I expected. Interesting about the Santorum-types, tough.

My impression was that the socio-economic scale was actually:

Moderates - Christian Democrats - Centre - Liberals.

With Folkpartiet/Liberals being the most right winged on economics and Reinfeldt making the Moderates more centrist than the others (especially after Annie L. took Centre to the right) .

[politicus]

Sweden is like Britain; all kinds of things change, but the underlying patterns are remarkably stable.

With regards to the former, Västerbotten is interesting. What's behind that shift?

I think one explanation is that it used to be very evangelical and thus vote for the Liberals. The decline in religiosity would then make some sense.

Then you have the urbanization - the really rural areas has traditionally often voted Centre while more densely populated parts of rural areas vote left. The former has lost weight over time.

The historical link between Evangelical Free Churches, the temperance movement and Liberalism in Sweden is really odd. Why did those types not join the Agrarian Association/Centre?

[politicus]

The centre and its predecessors were more loyal to Svenska kyrkan.  This difference can be seen in difference between Jönköpings län and Kronoborgs län.

Okay, but it doesn't quite explain the why. Somehow early peasant leaders must have been pro-establishment, maybe because they were chosen among the wealthier peasants? Also perhaps it was less anti-aristocratic than most peasant movements given that most Swedish peasant owned their own land.

The Swedish concept of frisinne http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisinne is a strange deviation from standard Liberalism and somewhat related to Grundtvigianism in Denmark (which is also a weird "ideology").

[politicus]

Any particular reason the NW corner of Scania is so right wing? There are other rural areas in Scania that are far more balanced.

[politicus]

Social Democrats 33%
Moderates 30%
Sweden Democrats 10%
Green Party 8%
Left Party 6%
Liberal Party 5,5%
Centre Party 3,5%
Christian Democrats 3%

[politicus]

Were they ever in sync with one another?

Back in the SD heyday after WW2, yes. Gerhardsen 1945-51, 1955-1965/Erlander 1946-1969. But even that is not really sync if you look at ups and downs in election results. And since SAP was in power 1936-1976 it gets a little theoretical.

Denmark and Sweden are generally opposites regarding R/L governments.

[politicus]

3,9% of immigrants prefer Sweden Democrats, I guess those are mostly Finns and Swedish talking Finns.

I'd be surprised if any Swedish-speaking Finns vote Sweden Democrats. Demographically they're as far from SD voters as one can imagine.

I'd guess those are mostly European immigrants from countries where xenophobia and islamophobia are much less stigmatized than in Sweden. Especially I imagine areas like the Balkans.

And Denmark, of course.

So are the Swedish speaking Finns mainly well paid academics and other upper middle class types?

[politicus]

Democratically I think it's great that this means that the government can't pass a budget just with a plurality because the opposition parties disagree with them in different ways. Especially in an important area like the budget I think there should be a simple majority for it to be passed.

I guess the government will now try to lure one of the Alliance party away from the block, but that might be difficult. Which party would generally be closest to the government economically? KD?

KD is right wing.

[politicus]

Battle for party leadership in KD in Sweden. Seems to be between Ebba Busch and Jacob Forssmed.

Busch is the charismatic leader of KD in Uppsala. She got more personal votes than any other candidate for the Uppsala local elections last year and has been a rising star for some time.

She is generally perceived as being on the right-wing of the party, emphasizing more secular conservatism than traditional religious ideas. She talks a lot about curbing the powers of the state. She seems smart and young, is a woman (pretty good looking too) and, IMO, has the right type of ideology to get some votes back to a party in deed crisis. The main drawbacks are I guess the same things, youth, might be seen as too radical a shift, etc. Also, she is not in parliament which is often seen as a drawback. Then again, it seemed to work fine for S with Löfven. She is also giving birth soon but she basically told the media to get over themselves with regards to that.

Forssmed I know little about, but he's apparently more to the left and a compassionate conservative. He also seems more linked to the party establishment and the current line. Not well known outside of the party.

So far, Busch has a clear lead in district nominations but most of the big districts are yet to declare.

[politicus]

Busch is the charismatic leader of KD in Uppsala.  

Really... ?I will have to disagree with you here Gustaf.  If Busch seemed any more cold she'd be the ice queen from Narnia. Busch might be charismatic for KD, but really, that's not saying much.

Something awkward/forced about her smile on most pics, but she does look warm sometimes:



Awkward Busch:



(not sure I should post these, Tender will make a "hot or not" thread in no time.. )