SWEDEN - September 14, 2014 - GUIDE and THREAD

[Antonio the Sixth]

The upcoming election inspired me to compile some data about Swedish elections from 1911 on. Here are a few charts I made, if someone's interested.


Party results as a % of valid votes:


Party results as a share of registered voters:


Coalition results as a % of registered voters:


Hoping to see the much needed red rebound in 2014!

[Gustaf]

I don't get how you're calculating stuff in that graph. What are you counting as part of the coalitions?

[Lurker]

The Coalition ("bloc" or something like that would probably be better) stuff  seems to be based on the alliances of today  - i.e. Kd is included in the Bourgeoisie coalitons long before they actually were so in reality.

Nice graphs!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Thanks Lurker!

I don't get how you're calculating stuff in that graph. What are you counting as part of the coalitions?

Red = Left/Communists + SAP + Greens

Blue = Moderates + KDs + Liberals + Centre

I know these coalitions haven't always been stable through time, but I thought it would only make things more confusing to include different parties at different times. And yeah, I should have said bloc.

[Gustaf]

Thanks Lurker!

I don't get how you're calculating stuff in that graph. What are you counting as part of the coalitions?

Red = Left/Communists + SAP + Greens

Blue = Moderates + KDs + Liberals + Centre

I know these coalitions haven't always been stable through time, but I thought it would only make things more confusing to include different parties at different times. And yeah, I should have said bloc.

Oh, ok. So why not as share of voters then? This seems like an unnecessary deflation of the numbers to me.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Thanks Lurker!

I don't get how you're calculating stuff in that graph. What are you counting as part of the coalitions?

Red = Left/Communists + SAP + Greens

Blue = Moderates + KDs + Liberals + Centre

I know these coalitions haven't always been stable through time, but I thought it would only make things more confusing to include different parties at different times. And yeah, I should have said bloc.

Oh, ok. So why not as share of voters then? This seems like an unnecessary deflation of the numbers to me.

Because the red and blue lines as % of valid votes largely mirror each other, since for most of Sweden's history no party outside of the blocs garnered a significant amount of support. I thought this version of the graph would add a lot of information without losing any.

Admittedly, electoral results that factor in abstention are a pet issue to me, and I know most people don't find them that interesting. Anyway I also have the other version of the graph, I can upload it too if you're interested.

[Gustaf]

Thanks Lurker!

I don't get how you're calculating stuff in that graph. What are you counting as part of the coalitions?

Red = Left/Communists + SAP + Greens

Blue = Moderates + KDs + Liberals + Centre

I know these coalitions haven't always been stable through time, but I thought it would only make things more confusing to include different parties at different times. And yeah, I should have said bloc.

Oh, ok. So why not as share of voters then? This seems like an unnecessary deflation of the numbers to me.

Because the red and blue lines as % of valid votes largely mirror each other, since for most of Sweden's history no party outside of the blocs garnered a significant amount of support. I thought this version of the graph would add a lot of information without losing any.

Admittedly, electoral results that factor in abstention are a pet issue to me, and I know most people don't find them that interesting. Anyway I also have the other version of the graph, I can upload it too if you're interested.

Fair enough. I guess it just looks funny to me then. The other version would be cool, yeah.

It may be noted that these coalitions are far from permanent. So for example, even though the right won in 1956, C was in coalition with S at the time and refused to form a new government even after they left that coalition in 1957.

[The Lord Marbury]

Maybe a line should be added at the botton to show which party lead the government as well, just to clarify...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Here it is!



As you see, it almost always adds up to 97-99% except for 1991, 2006 and 2010.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Also, for good measure, here's the first chart corrected by abstention:



It's interesting in that it cancels out both the SAP drop in 1928 (showing a continuous growth from 1920 to 1940) and the big 1940 outlier. It also shows SAP still slightly over their 1928 levels, as opposed to having shrunk back to their 1910s numbers.

[Gustaf]

What's your populist far-right thing in the 30s? Is is the Commie-turned-Nazi grouping?

Also, to those who are unaware, that colour is for New Democracy in the early 90s and for the Sweden Democrats in the 00s even though those parties are in many ways very, very different beasts.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What's your populist far-right thing in the 30s? Is is the Commie-turned-Nazi grouping?

Also, to those who are unaware, that colour is for New Democracy in the early 90s and for the Sweden Democrats in the 00s even though those parties are in many ways very, very different beasts.

Yeah, I've included the "national socialists" in that grouping. The Left/Communist and Right/Populist groups are the only ones that aggregate several parties at different times, including some fairly minor ones.

[DC Al Fine]

Why was Centre the big party of the right in the 70's & why did the moderates overtake them?

[EPG]

I always assumed the Centre took the volatile non-socialist vote that Professor Ohlin occupied since the war, then lost it to the Moderates as they, well, became more moderate while winning most of the internal debates among the right over time.

[Gustaf]

Why was Centre the big party of the right in the 70's & why did the moderates overtake them?

I wouldn't say the Moderates moderated during that era. If anything, their rhetoric tacked to the right during the 70s and 80s as far as I know.

The Centre party was a rural party based on farmer interests originally. In the early 70s that became linked with the green wave and boosted them. Over time as Sweden urbanized their base just disappeared. They also were viewed as most likely to jump in bed with S and that tends to get punished by  centre-right voters.

[EPG]

Ah, that makes sense.

So Centre voters didn't jump to a similarly moderate party, but rather to a party that would deliver the non-socialist policies they wanted, while opinion was turning to the right following the 70s crisis, as in most democracies.

I didn't guess that urbanisation mattered to the Centre in that period so much, since they only really gained new support in the late 1960s and lost it all as they stayed in government. However, in the post-war long run, it's clear that the People's and Centre parties each diminished over time after their leadership of the non-socialist bloc, while the Moderates instead consolidated their leadership.

[The Lord Marbury]

Political superstar Margot Wallström, a former Social Affairs Minister and EU Commissioner who was approached for the Social Democratic party leadership several times but said no at every turn has today come out and said that she's interested in making a return to Swedish politics. A bit of a boon for Löfven who's frontbench isn't exactly filled to the brim with people who have previous cabinet-level experience. Wallström mentioned immigration and integration issues as something that was of interest to her, but IMO she would make a fantastic Minister of Foreign Affairs. With her 10 years as EU Commissioner and 2 years of working for the UN she is definitely the opposition candidate for the position with the most gravitas.

Well unless Deputy UN Secretary-General Jan Eliasson is interested of course (unlikely), but he may be seen as too old for the job anyways.

[Gustaf]

Political superstar Margot Wallström, a former Social Affairs Minister and EU Commissioner who was approached for the Social Democratic party leadership several times but said no at every turn has today come out and said that she's interested in making a return to Swedish politics. A bit of a boon for Löfven who's frontbench isn't exactly filled to the brim with people who have previous cabinet-level experience. Wallström mentioned immigration and integration issues as something that was of interest to her, but IMO she would make a fantastic Minister of Foreign Affairs. With her 10 years as EU Commissioner and 2 years of working for the UN she is definitely the opposition candidate for the position with the most gravitas.

Well unless Deputy UN Secretary-General Jan Eliasson is interested of course (unlikely), but he may be seen as too old for the job anyways.

Jan Eliasson briefly held the post. I don't like Wallström myself (never understood her popularity) and I think her appeal is weaker now than back when people wanted her as leader. Still commands a lot of support though and one of few experienced SAP politicians who isn't tainted by previous failures or perceived as a has-been. So good news for them in that sense.

[The Lord Marbury]

http://www.thelocal.se/20140417/pm-pleads-ignorance-of-bad-vattenfall-bid-on-nuon

So either former Enterprise Minister and Centre Party leader Maud Olofsson is lying about informing Reinfeldt about the Nuon deal or Reinfeldt is lying about not being informed about the most expensive deal ever made by a state owned corporation. Either way one of these individuals have been behaving incredibly incompetently.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

http://www.thelocal.se/20140417/pm-pleads-ignorance-of-bad-vattenfall-bid-on-nuon

So either former Enterprise Minister and Centre Party leader Maud Olofsson is lying about informing Reinfeldt about the Nuon deal or Reinfeldt is lying about not being informed about the most expensive deal ever made by a state owned corporation. Either way one of these individuals have been behaving incredibly incompetently.

Yeah... it's pretty obvious which one is lying, but I guess it's better to throw an ex-minister under the bus than two current ones.

Also since none of the non-Swedish posters here will have any idea what we're actually talking about I'll have to make a post explaining this affair:
 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Swedish politics lately has been focused on two things:

1. The Nuon Affair/Scandal

The Swedish state owned energy company Vattenfall (Water Fall) in February 2009 bought up the Dutch energy company Nuon for the price of 89 billion SEK (equaling £ 9,7 billion/ $ 13,5 billion) which makes it the most expensive purchases by a state-owned company in Swedish history .

Last summer the purchase came to the front of the political battlegrounds as it was concluded that the company basically was only worth 42% of the price Vattenfall had paid for it. This, as well as the fact that Vattenfall made a major economic loss that year, made the opposition demand inquiries into the deal.
The government initially had a calmed gathered response to this saying that it was too early to assess the long-term investment made into Nuon and the European energy market and that the price at the time of the purchase had been in line with the estimated value of the company.
This was until a report showed that the Swedish government had been warned by management consultants that the deal would add little profit to the state and risk consuming taxpayer-money.
Things really hit the fan as former Minister of Enterprise, Maud Olofsson, refused to appear at a hearing by Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee to attest to what actually happened during the purchase.  This refusal naturally shocked and enraged the media as well as the opposition, and threw a whole new dubious shadow on the whole deal.

Yesterday the Minister of Finance, Anders Borg, was questioned by the Constitutional Affairs Committee and took the opportunity to use Olofsson’s refusal to appear, and throw her under the bus, claiming Olofsson had acted alone when approving the company board’s decision to purchase Nuon not informing the rest of the cabinet until the deal was already sealed, claims that was backed up by the Prime Minister as he appeared in front of the Committee today. The fact that both these Ministers were ignorant of what was happening doesn’t add up very well with previous statements made by the government and the fact that even the opposition had been informed about the deal before it was sealed, so yeah.   

EDIT: So while I was writing this,  it has also been revealed that there was an official memo sent to the Ministry of Finance from the Ministry of Enterprise and Energy detailing the deal two weeks before Vattenfall's offer on Nuon was made, making it even more inconceivable that neither Borg nor Reinfeldt had any idea about the deal before it was made.     

2. It is the return of Feminist Initiative

Minor party Feminist Initiative has had a surge in support recently. New members are flooding to the party that has in the last month recorded poll results between 1,5-2,0%, more than double of the party’s results in the ’10 election. This is likely the result of a vivid debate on women’s issues that got started earlier this year due to a number of criticized freeing court cases on rape and has led to a great exposure of gender inequality in the Swedish media. The question now is if the party will be able to sail the good winds all the way to Parliament in September or if they’ll be drowned out during the campaign in the summer and when the established left-wing parties start to attack them with “Don’t-waste-your-vote” rhetoric.           

[MaxQue]

Surely that is killing any slight odds than the right had to keep power this fall?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Surely that is killing any slight odds than the right had to keep power this fall?

There's always hope.

[Enno von Loewenstern]

Are the Swedendemocrats in the position to benefit of the discontent with the center-right government or wins only the left?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Are the Swedendemocrats in the position to benefit of the discontent with the center-right government or wins only the left?

They are benefiting a lot from it. There was a poll in March by Yougov showing 13,5% of people who voted for the Moderates at the last election would vote for SD this time, whereas only 8,9% would vote for one of the left-wing parties.