SWEDEN - September 14, 2014 - GUIDE and THREAD

[DC Al Fine]

Excellent stuff. One question: You said Reinfeldt took the Moderates from their worst defeat to one of their biggest successes. The defeat was the 2002 election I presume? There was a 7-8% swing from the Moderates to the Liberals. What happened?

[DC Al Fine]

Excellent stuff. One question: You said Reinfeldt took the Moderates from their worst defeat to one of their biggest successes. The defeat was the 2002 election I presume? There was a 7-8% swing from the Moderates to the Liberals. What happened?

How to not suck at elections in Sweden:

1) Don't campaign on drastically lower taxes without being able to articulate why they are needed and that the social services won't be completely destroyed when most people are doing fine as is and there is a remarkably energetic Liberal Party showing initiative and shifting towards tough-on-immigration policies.

2) Don't have pretty much every foot soldier from your party interviewed with a hidden camera express racist views.

Basicly this, and the Moderate leader Bo Lundgren being a terrible terrible leader.

The Moderates ran a campaign that basicly was, we're gonna lower taxes a bunch with-out any plans on how to finance said tax-cuts, wheras the People's Party ran an offesive campaign with new ideas, such as being tougher on immigration.

The Christian Democrats and the Centre Party also ran decent campaigns, while the Social Democrats were soaring. There weren't much room for M to move but down.

Add to this Lundgren's impopularity. He was seen as an uncharismatic rich guy. Only 12% wanted to see him as PM. Devestating numbers. Both the People's Party leader and the Christian Democratic leader was openly aiming to take his place as leader of the right.


As for the racist scandal...  it's hotly debated if it did actually have any major effect. Personally I don't believe that people are going to be so offended by local politicians expressing racist views on hidden camera they go and vote for the party who's openly demanding a tougher immigration policy. And the Moderates were already going down in the polls when it happened. Although it might have had some effect by accelerating their fall by show-ing what an utter mess the party was in at the time .     

Yeah that would do it Thanks for the answer.

[DC Al Fine]

Sweden has gotten a new party - the Christian Values Party which is founded by anti-abortion activists disappointed with the Christian Democrats turning towards "liberal values". It will be interesting to see if they can get above 0.1% and how many Christian conservatives who still vote for the Christian Democrats and haven't gone to the Sweden Democrats or not voted.

It's the Swedish Christian Democrats that are pro-choice right?

[DC Al Fine]

They have ver strong pro life wing which can mobilize and get "their" people elected. For example in my hometown Göteborg, the second largest in Sweden, their canidates got that much votes both to the parliament (riksdag) and the local council (kommunfullmäktige) in 2010 that they got elected instead of the first namnes on their list which was Pro choice.

Election to the riksdag. The christiandemocratic ticket in Göteborg
KD   Annelie Enochson   3208   16,46%
KD   David Lega    2625 13,47%

Annelie is PRO life and was second on the list. David is pro choice nad was first on the list. Annlie got elected.

Thanks

As minor parties go, though, it would have filled a legitimate niche, maybe getting 0.2% or so.

Not to sound trite, but why would anyone vote for the Christian Democrats if they aren't pro-life? The other right wing parties seem to be stronger if another issue is important to you.

[DC Al Fine]

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

[DC Al Fine]

Sorry if I sound pedantic here, but what would "modern conservative" entail, as you see it? I.e., comparable to what foreign parties? Wouldn't they still overlap quite a lot with Moderaterna?

Same question.

[DC Al Fine]

Sorry if I sound pedantic here, but what would "modern conservative" entail, as you see it? I.e., comparable to what foreign parties? Wouldn't they still overlap quite a lot with Moderaterna?

Same question.

You seem to assume that Moderaterna is a conservative party these days...

I mean taking actual conservative positions. Like, cutting taxes and opposing a large welfare state. Wanting a strong defence. Being a little bit patriotic, perhaps favouring some restrictions on immigration.

Moderaterna is doing none of that at the moment, which is why another party could take it.

But isn't M's centrist turn a consequence of the fact that such a "conservative" party would just never manage to become electorally competitive? Pre-2006 electoral history would point in that direction.

You're taking the wrong attitude. Pre 2006-M usually raked in about 20% of the vote. I think KD would be pretty happy with half of that.

Well, they certainly could get up to 20% (that's what the FrP did in Norway, after all), but even if they did, there's no way they'd get enough support from other parties to lead a government or to push economic policy massively to the right. Thank God Sweden doesn't have a two-party system. In order to really hold power for a significant amount of time, you need to get at least as centrist as M did.

I'm not sure I understand your point. It isn't as if KD is leading a government at the moment either?

My point is that by pushing to the right they could become a strong junior coalition partner in a centre-right alliance as opposed to a weak one like they are now. Disgruntled M voters could vote for them to drag the government rightwards.

That's an interesting idea. As you said earlier, SD seems to be occupying that portion of the spectrum so there's no space for them to expand

[DC Al Fine]

Windjammer, while I am undecided in this election I am generally a right-wing supporter in Sweden. This is quite common - I have friends from abroad who settled here who are firm left-wingers in their home countries but think our left is just too over the top and crazy.

Enno, they definitely aren't now. I think they will become eventually, but yeah something like what you say at least.

To be honest, it doesn't surprise me at all .
The Swedish right seems to be extremely moderate while the Swedish left seems to be really far to the left of the other countries from Europe .

But seriously, I understand the differences between the 3 leftist parties. But are there many differences between the parties from the current majority?

I get the impression that it has more to do with what niche the party is appealing to.

[DC Al Fine]

Feminist Initiative is proposing a special tax that only men will have to pay, in order to even out the sallery gap between the genders... FI's leader, Gudrun Schyman, doesn't want to call it a Man Tax though... "That sounds wrong... I prefer the term Equality Tax".

Because nothing quite says equality like having people pay different tax levels based on their gender.

Feminist jizya

I'll have to keep this one in my back pocket for the next time I see one of those annoying "feminism just means equality" posts on Facebook.

[DC Al Fine]

Feminist Initiative is proposing a special tax that only men will have to pay, in order to even out the sallery gap between the genders... FI's leader, Gudrun Schyman, doesn't want to call it a Man Tax though... "That sounds wrong... I prefer the term Equality Tax".

Because nothing quite says equality like having people pay different tax levels based on their gender.

Feminist jizya

I'll have to keep this one in my back pocket for the next time I see one of those annoying "feminism just means equality" posts on Facebook.

That actually sounds quite reasonable. I myself have seriously considered "tithing" a certain % of my income to feminist organizations once I begin actually earning stuff.

Give your time and money to the poor. You'll do a hell of a lot more good than attacking non-existent microagressions or somesuch.