SWEDEN - September 14, 2014 - GUIDE and THREAD

[politicus]

The Left Party is the party of the Swedish hard-left and the modern incarnation of the former Swedish Communist Party. They run on a platform of higher taxes for the middle- and upper-class, feminism with affirmative action, a strong welfare state, and stimulation of the economy through government spending. They’re against Swedish participation in the EU, and want to ban all forms of private healthcare and private education.

Historically they’ve acted as passive support for Social Democratic governments and as a left-wing guard dog in parliament but never participated as an official coalition partner in a government as they’ve been seen as too radical by the Social Democratic leadership.

They’re most strong in the historically left-wing North of Sweden, as well as among poor academics and students in urban areas.   


The Greens are an environmentalist and social-progressive party that entered parliament in 1988 due to an environmental debate following the great seal death of the period. For most of its early existence it was seen as a one-issue party but has since branded out to most other issues.

The party naturally advocates for such policies as a ban on nuclear power, more and better public transport and rail road infrastructure, higher taxes on carbondioxide, strict environmental regulations, a six-hour workday instead of eight, and so on.

Their base is students and young voters, as well as educated (mostly female) middle-class voters in the big cities.     
 

Nice work! A couple of questions.

1. What are the most important positions where SAP view the Left Party as "too radical"?

2. The academics voting for the Danish Unity List are not especially poor (they mostly work in the public sector, so they make less than average for that reason, but not otherwise). So I got curious: When you say "poor" academics do you just mean "public sector" or are there a systematic tendency that succesful academics drop out of the Left Party?

3. If the Greens want a shorter workday are they going for a steady state/no growth economy where the workers will have to accept a lower standard of living (ie no compensation for the shorter work day and lower welfare because the tax base will be lower)  or are they in the populist mold of enviromentalism, where they just pretend public welfare and standard of living can go on at the same level?

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How would the Swedish Chef vote?

He wouldn't be able to vote because he is actually a Norwegian.


http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2012/08/everything-we-thought-we-knew-about-swedish-chef-was-wrong/56278/

[politicus]

Promising that the extreme right will get almost 10%?!

That's still a low share in contemporary Europe for a country with PR and they are by far the weakest right wing populist party in mainland Scandinavia.

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Thats not true. Iceland does not have one. And Sverigedemokraterna are the only ones that are considering cooperating with Front National, i.e. they are the most extreme ones.

And the argument that all other nordic counties have strong rightwing populist parties is just sad. So sad.

Iceland is not part of mainland Scandinavia .

I am not sure SD are really to the right of DPP. DPP just has a more professional communication and PR strategy that is tighly controlled by the party leadership which focus on upholding a moderate public image. The same could be said for the True Finns.

I think that given globalization and mass immigration a right wing populist party is basically an integrated part of the modern European party systems.
You can avoid right wing populists in Parliament if you have FPTP or strong elements of it, or if the conservative party accepts extremist fractions, like in Spain, but otherwise every (former) ethnically defined nation state in Europe with significant non-European immigration (ie not Iceland), is bound to get one party of that ilk in Parliament.

Given its demograhics with high level of immigration and history (ethnically defined culture, relatively bad integration, very highly developed welfare state thats now under pressure),  Sweden should be fertile ground for right wing populists and the main reason why SD has been relatively weak is IMO that it has been run by amateurs + the lack of a charismatic (or even semi-charismatic) leader.

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Its hard to read yellow, could you show SD with some other colour?

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So how is Löfven managing his reconversion from unionist to politician ? It strikes me as a bit odd he was for years leader of a large union and in SAP's executive board, I guess you don't have a "charte d'Amiens"...

Thats actually the classical Scandinavian SD combo. Its not so common anymore, but still viewed as an ideal by many traditional SDs.

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Yes, they really seem superfluous, as said earlier.

Why did Schyman leave Vänsterpartiet in the first place, btw?

As for that video... Wow.

She had to resign due to some scandal about fraud or something. After V expelled her she founded F!

She admitted tax fraud in 2003 and left V in 2004 - officially because Vänsterpartiet didn't prioritize feminism enough...

[politicus]

So here's a bold and brave prediction for the next government:

Minister of Finance - Magdalena Andersson (S)

Is she going to be a strong or weak MoF? How does she "rate" compared to Anders Borg?

[politicus]

Sifo's May poll:

S: 30,9% (-1,2)
V: 7,3% (-1,1)
MP: 10,3% (-0,3)
TOTAL = 48,5% (-2,6)

M: 23,2% (-1,3)
C: 5,0% (+1,2)
FP: 7,0% (+0,3)
KD: 3,5% (-0,1)
TOTAL = 38,7% (+0,1)

SD: 8,8% (+0,5)
FI: 2,9% (+1,6)


Red-Green slipping below 50%...

So it begins! 

Well I would surmise that the Alliance itself would actually need to make some gains from the red-green drop in order to have a chance.

It looks more likely that FI will actually get in. With 2,9% it looks doable.

[politicus]

There is a distinct lack of social conservatism throughout both the left and right, though, with even the Christian Democrats accepting liberal abortion laws, for example. Economically, the farthest right-wingers of Timbro (our Cato Institute) would feel right at home with Mitt Romney as Prime Minister.

That last sentence is hardly true. I was with a Timbro group in the US during the election and most people supported Obama.

Sweden has some weak ass Libertarians.

[politicus]

We must always the dual identity of SAP. It has always been against nationalisations of Swedish industry, making it much more libertarian than many equal parties in Western Europe.

SAP got further down the road to implementing economic democracy than any other European SD and large parts of the party had it as a core goal for more than a decade. Economic democracy with union controlled employee funds is an actual attempt to realize the socialist goal of workers controlling the means of production. Nationalization on the other hand is from a socialist point of view just a "back-up option" if you think the real deal is unrealistic.

And libertarian is hardly a relevant term in this context.

[politicus]

Chilling poll numbers from Demoskop today.

M - 18,5%
C - 5,3%
FP - 5,7%
KD - 4,8%

S - 29,1%
V - 8,1%
MP - 13,0%

SD - 10,0%
FI - 4,4%   

The trends from the EP election seems to show up here. The Moderates are doing terribly, C and KD slightly gaining to above 4%. Sweden Democrats, the Greens, and Feminists are doing strong. The Social Democrats surprisingly weak.

S+MP+FI government anyone?   

Wouldn't that actually work better than S+Mp+V?

[politicus]

The Swedish Greens are really not ultra-left and have worked with the right on a number of issues as well as governing with them in many places at the local level. That's why one of Sweden's more prominent libertarians backed them last election.

Sweden has some weak ass Libertarians.

[politicus]

Sverigedemokraterna 63%

Moderaterna 57%

Centerpartiet 53%

Folkpartiet 50%

Kristdemokraterna 47%

Miljöpartiet 44%

Socialdemokraterna 42%

Vänsterpartiet 41%

Feministiskt initiativ 38%

Piratpartiet 37%

As usual my heterogeneous mix of left and right positions makes for a weird ranking in polls like this.

Still, I am surprised that after voting for every environmentalist position and most of the feminist ones + gay rights and supporting greater income equality + no profit in the welfare industry I still get so right wing a score.

I suppose my support for decentralisation and being against the state taking away responsibility from municipalities and regions could influence this?

Also surprised about the ranking of the centre-right parties with KD as the party I agree the least with and SD on top. Immigration, increase of defense spending + NATO membership and stricter penalties seem to count heavily while my support of Christian values and family friendly policies didn't matter much (apart from maybe reinforcing the SD vote?). Supporting EU exit would add to the SD support, are all the others pro-EU?

My actual vote if I were to vote in Sweden would likely be Kristdemokraterna (out of principle), but with Mp as second choice.
The old school Centre Party with focus on decentralisation, green issues and a centrist economic policy would have been attractive to me, but not the current incarnation.

EDIT: I suppose Moderaterna being the most centrist of the centre-right parties on economics might explain the ranking, with SD being even more centrist than M on economics.

EDIT2:

Would it be correct that my ranking of the bourgeoisie parties SD - M - C - FP - KD  is basically a left to right on the socioeconomic scale?

My ranking of the leftist parties MP - SDA - VP - FI is a right to left, provided that FI is even more left wing than VP on economics.

If so, I land on the right wing side of the left-right divide and then basically dislike the most socioeconomically extreme parties on either side the most.

[politicus]

Retook the test while skipping the immigration questions. Still the same in top 2, so most of it cant be explained by immigration.
For some reason I now disagree much more with Folkpartiet, which is strange because I thought it was a pro-immigration party.


Moderaterna 57%

Sverigedemokraterna 57%

Centerpartiet 52%

Miljöpartiet 48%

Kristdemokraterna 47%

Piratpartiet 45%

Socialdemokraterna 45%

Folkpartiet 44%

Vänsterpartiet 43%

Feministisk Initiativ 41%

[politicus]

How is the FI (Feminist Initiative) doing in the polls, are they improving since they secured a seat in the EU Elections back in May, or was that the high water mark?

They're holding at around 2,5-3%, which is roughly the same raw numbers of votes the party got in the EU election but because turnout is higher in the parliamentary election it's not enough for them to get above the threshold.

Threshold is 5% I am assuming?

Nah, 4%.

[politicus]

But as the Greens notoriously overpreform in polls  something quite extraordinary would be required for that to happen. (in august 2010 only 2% seperated them from S, but on election day they were 9% behind)

What is the reason for this?

[politicus]

We're kind of far from Denmark. For better and worse, I guess.

For better.

I once read the Denmark was the Western country doing the less about refugees and than they freak out as soon there is more than 2-3 ethnic restaurants in a street, claiming they are overwhelmed by immigration.

Denmark isn't close to being the country taking the least asylum seekers per capita and the restaurant thing is just silly, there is an abundance of ethnic restaurants in all major towns (and a Kurdish pizzeria in every hamlet..).

[politicus]

OK, guys, stop this. Danish and Swedish media both love to score cheap points through demonizing the other country, which affects our relations negatively. No need to keep that demonization rolling. There are things both countries can learn from each other.

What are you, a Dane?

Nah, more like a Scanian. A real Dane would not have admitted Denmark can learn anything from Sweden.

[politicus]

Question for the Swedish posters:

Is there any other good English-speaking site besides this thread here and thelocal.se to follow election news ?

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/default.aspx?programid=2054

Thx.

Swedish police use horses ? Why not just tear-gas and water-cannon the protestors ? Probably better than having a horse trample on people's head ...

Water cannons can cause severe damages.  Horses are generally efficient in breaking up crowds, but only if the protestors actually move when they advance.

[politicus]

Cool graph.
That one Social Democrat who aligns closest to all the centre-right candidates (Mayson Murad) must feel very out-of-place in her party.
The same of course goes for the single Christian Democrat who is placed dangerously close to all the Sweden Democrats (who are otherwise all by themselves).

Stig Töyrä, 58. He is from Pajala in Norrbotten which is practically in Finland and Finnish speaking, so maybe he is a True Finn in disguise .

Murad having an Iraqi background likely plays a role in her akward position on the chart. Many politically active immigrants join a left wing party as the most pro-multicultural option while having mainly centre-right values. In her case she seems to be very pro-business.

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SD has fairly standard centrist/centre-left pro-welfare policies and "normal" policies outside of immigration, development aid, law and order and EU.

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Der innere Schweinehund, perhaps?

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Eh, I've given up on defense - and I, for one, welcome our new Russian overlords...

The founder of the Danish Progress Party Mogens Glistrup wanted to abolish the military and replace the Ministry of Defence with an answering machine saying "We surrender" in Russian. I suppose that's more or less Schyman's defence policy as well.

[politicus]

I think it's time for countries that use PR with thresholds (see also Germany with the FDP debacle) to start thinking of a way to correct the ensuing misrepresentation. They could for example introduce IRV among list (so that if a party comes below the threshold their vote is redistributed among 2nd preference getters) or electoral coalitions (where the vote is redistributed among other members of the coalition).

Its a lot easier just to lower the threshold. 4-5% is simply too high, if you use 2% as we do in Denmark the problem is virtually non-existent.