Swedish election, 2018: Political Impasse, Löfven loses confidence vote

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Is there 2014 deal to keep out SD still on?  I thought I read somewhere that M will back out of that deal after the election.  I could be totally wrong.

If you're talking about the December Agreement (decemberöverenskommelsen), in which the government and the four Alliance parties agreed not to block the budget of a sitting minority government with the help of the Sweden Democrats, the Christian Democrats backed out of that deal followed by the Moderates and the rest of the Alliance in 2015, less than a year after the parties agreed to it. So that deal is dead and buried a long time ago.

The informal "cordon sanitaire" against the Sweden Democrats are more or less still in force, none of the other parliamentary would go into coalition with them, but the Moderates and Christian Democrats have said that they're open to cooperating with them on certain issues and in some places on the local level there have been some cooperation. Most notably in Hässleholm, a small city in   southern Sweden, the Social Democratic mayor was ousted in favour of a Moderate one in favour of the Moderates supporting a Sweden Democratic politician for Deputy Mayor.¹

The Centre Party and the Liberals have been very critical of the Moderates² move towards the Sweden Democrats which has strained the relationship between the parties a lot.

<sup>1) The Sweden Democrat resigned shortly thereafter due to scandal when it was discovered he had cheated the city out of money and was instead replaced by a Christian Democrat...

2) If you're wondering why no one has bothered to criticize the Christian Democrats, it's because no one cares about them or take them seriously.</sup>   

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Why did they defect from SD?

They defected for different reasons.

Margareta Larsson (who also happens to be party leader Jimmy Åkessons mother-in-law) defected as a protest against what she felt was a too controlling party leadership and lack of democracy with-in the party itself.

Hanna Wigh defected after she was sexually assaulted by another MP for the Swedish Democrats and the party hushed down the incident.

Pavel Gamov didn't defect as much as he was thrown out by the leadership due to a scandalous trip to Moscow (most likely paid for by the Russian government) where he got so awfully drunk it wasn't even acceptable by Russian standards, threatening and assaulting a female party member who was also in Moscow. Which sort of make Hanna Wigh teaming up with him... weird.     

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I think Feminist Initiative's chances of passing the threshold are pretty slim unless something unexpected happens that throw them into the spot-light before the election. They do however have a small vocal and very loyal core that will stay with them through thick and thin and who won't abandon them to cast a tactical vote for the government, which although preferred compared to the right-wing parties are not popular among the urban idealistic left-wing youth. Think of them as Jill Stein voting Berniecrats, the government as Hillary Clinton, the Alliance as Jeb Bush and the Sweden Democrats as Trump and you get the dynamic.

Social Democrats voting tactically for the Greens is a very likely scenario though. It already happened in 2002. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Lots of talk about AfS in the right-wing internet sphere. Swedes, do you have the impression that they are taking off? Chances of them making it into parliament?

I'd rate their chances as rather low. Right now they're sort of in the spot-light because of the defections but besides that they seem to be rather unknown among the general public. Gustav Kasselstrand has had a following among the alt-right for a long time but it doesn't seem to translate to the comman SD-voter. When Kasselstrand was expelled from the party there was hardly a dent in SD's poll numbers.

I also think people have sort of a hard time to differentiate what makes AfS different from SD. Back when Kasselstrand was still a member of SD his main beef with the leadership was that he didn't like their pro-Israel policies, that he thought the party lacked internal democracy, and that he wanted them to move right on economics (a subject he has made a 180 U-turn on since he now accuses SD of having become to close to the right...) So I don't see what would compel the average SD-voter abandon the safe option to vote for an alternative (pun intended) that may not make it in and thus risk wasting their vote.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Thank you for your answer, SwedishCheese. How anti-Israel are AfS exactly? I suppose I could live with a "not our problem, don't engage with it" stance to the point where I could still vote for them over SD (who are better on this issue), but anything further than that (i.e. outspoken solidarity with "Palestine") would be a dealbreaker.

Kasselstrand's position is that Palestine should be internationally recognized as an independent state, according to himself based on his nationalistic belief that every people (and he's counts the Palestinians as one) has a right to their own sovereign nation and right to expel people with another nationality and culture.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

https://www.thelocal.se/20180504/swedish-social-democrats-aim-to-halve-refugee-numbers

Social Democratic aim to halve refugee numbers.

I guess a resumption of the Green-Red coalition is out of the question?

It'll be quite hard to sell a continuation of the coalition to the membership of either party. At the moment it doesn't even seem as if the two parties are trying to hide their contempt for each-other any longer.

I think if there's one thing we can be sure about when it comes to this election it is that government will be hard for whoever wins. (Though that seems to be standard in European elections nowadays...)

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I wonder, given the collapse of Alliance; is SAP making overtures to Centre, the Liberals etc to see if they don't mind supporting a Social Democratic government? A SAP-Centre government with outside support from the Liberals and Greens could probably be viable numerically (although I don't know about politically).

It's not really feasible. The reason the Alliance are having troubles is immigration. While the Centre Party and to a lesser extent the Liberals want a more generous immigration policy, both the Moderates and the Social Democrats wants further restrictions.

So the Centre Party doesn't agree with SAP on either immigration or economics, while they at least agree on economics with the Moderates. So if C isn't able to agree with M they aren't very likely to agree with SAP and form government with them.

My bet for a long time has been that we either get a pure Moderate minority government or a pure Social Democratic minority government.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Is The Alliance officially dead or just facing a lot of disagreement over immigration?

Officially it's still alive, I think all the Alliance parties still claim that they want an Alliance government. But everyone knows it's kind of dead due to the immigration split.

Ah. Any chance the Moderate Party reverts to how it used to be post-election?

No, they have invested a lot of effort trying to re-brand themselves as a party that is though on immigration. Shifting their position on immigration and get people to see their new policy as credible and reliable has been one of their main focuses the last four years and changing position once more would be deadly for their support.

My guess is that although they want an Alliance government they'd be willing to sacrifice it if the choice was between that and start bleeding voters to SD again.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Since today is the National Day of Sweden, I think it's suitable to update with some interesting opinion polls.

(Election result 2014 in parenthesis)


Yesterday SCB released their famous once-every-six-months poll which by many is seen as the most prestigious poll of all.

Sweden parliament:

Left party - 7,4% (5,7%)
Social Democrats - 28,3%  (31,0%)
Green Party - 4,3% (6,9%)

Centre Party - 8,7% (6,1%)
Liberals - 4,4% (5,4%)
Christian Democrats - 2,9% (4,6%)
Moderates - 22,6% (23,3%)

Sweden Democrats - 18,5% (12,9%)


The Gotheburg based newspaper Göteborgsposten has commissioned a poll from Sifo for the local city council election in Gothenburg.

Gothenburg city council:

Left party - 13,2% (9,4%)
Social Democrats - 15,4%  (22,4%)
Green Party - 5,0% (10,7%)

Feminist Initiative - 4,2% (4,0%)

Centre Party - 3,3% (2,7%)
Liberals - 6,3% (8,1%)
Christian Democrats - 1,8% (4,0%)
Moderates - 19,7% (22,3%)

Sweden Democrats - 9,9% (7,0%)

Democrats* - 13,9% (N/A)
Vägvalet (Road choice)* - 5,6% (4,9%)

*Local party


The Malmö based newspaper Sydsvenskan has also commissioned a poll from Novus for the local city council election in Malmö.

Malmö city council:

Left party - 11,1% (8,5%)
Social Democrats - 29,5%  (32,9%)
Green Party - 5,0% (8,6%)

Feminist Initiative - 2,2% (3,2%)

Centre Party - 2,3% (1,7%)
Liberals - 5,8% (5,4%)
Christian Democrats - 1,3% (1,5%)
Moderates - 22,6% (23,3%)

Sweden Democrats - 17,6% (13,1%)

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

It is funny, that you can swear in the election ticket (look at Skåne party)

Whatever you think of the Skåne party otherwise, you have to give them credit for creativity when it comes to their election list.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

BTW, realized that no-one answered your question Ethelberth.

Most parties have a constituency list for their party (with local candidates to parliament) but some also have a national list. This first started to become a thing at the 2010 election (I think) when the moderates did it. The idea is that the national list can be used anywhere in the country for example by people who want to vote for the party leader but doesn't live in that person's constituency and by expats that vote from abroad.

As far as I know there is no actual limit to how many different lists you can register for a single party, but at the local and regional level some parties will also have lists with only young candidates or old candidates for example. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Speaking of which, it looks as if the SD bubble is bursting? That Sentio poll had them back behind SAP. For the first time since May as far as I can tell

Its bursting because SD is calling for an EU exit referendum and despite initial polls showing a drop in support because the idea is very unpopular in Sweden, he's continued to campaign on it. I guess he realized that even if he somehow outpaced the Social Democrats it would be meaningless since he will not be able to form any coalition. My guess is that rather than focusing on getting the first place he wants to build a long term euroskeptic movement which is dumb considering the problems that the UK have been getting since their referendum result.

I'm sorry, but WHAT?

SD's campaign is not focusing on leaving the European Union. Sure the party is officially for leaving the EU, which they always has been, but it's not something they actively campaign on. Åkesson said in June that he wants a referendum in the near future, but if that was the reason for their decline, they'd have started declining two months ago, not now when everybody has forgotten about it.

And the idea that Åkesson is trying to loose support on purpose is probably one of the most silly things I've read on Atlas, and that is saying something.

The reason they've dropped slightly is much more likely the result of that they've had a pretty silent campaign so far and that people are focusing more on who should be prime minister and that some of their voters thus turn to M and KD to ensure that Stefan Löfven is given the boot. The fact that they are climate change deniers when the environment has become the second most important issue   is also a much more likely reason.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Why the high C support on Gotland?

Farmers

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

My prediction:

Social Democrats - 24,8%
Sweden Democrats - 19,8%
Moderates - 17,7%
Left Party - 9,7%
Centre Party - 8,7%
Liberals - 6,1 %
Christian Democrats - 5,9%
Greens - 4,9%
Feminist Initiative - 0,9%

Others - 1,5%

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Note that in 2014, the exit polls were not correct: just like the pre-election polls, they underestimated the SD by about 3%.

So, it's better to wait for the real results that are coming in instead of hyping the exit polls.

You would think the exit pollsters might have learned a lesson from 2014 and adjusted their methodology.  In fact if they did there is as much risk they over-adjusted for the shy SD effect.   

They have, here is a Swedish news article about Exit pollsters having adjusted their methodology this year in order for them trying not too underestimate SD again.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I don't see why SD would still play along with the Alliance and vote for the no-confidence motion. If I were them, I would abstain, which should leave Löfven in place. Let the Alliance solve its own problems. They don't have a majority either, and they are not even the biggest bloc.

There is no reason for them not to vote against Löfven in the confidence vote. Kristersson won't automatically become Prime Minister (it's not a vote between two candidates)  so SD has the opportunity to vote out Löfven with-out having to approve Kristersson if the Speaker suggests him as the new Prime Minister.

Though it would be funny to see SD reward the government for actively voting against Björn Söder by allowing them to carry on until the budget vote in late November. I mean they're not the sharpest bunch but... that would be something.

   

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Yeah, pretty tense times at the moment. I still struggle to see L become a support party for S. It'd be virtually guaranteed electoral suicide.

So would participating in a government in need of active support from the Sweden Democrats as well though.

The real nut to crack in the government formation is that not a single government can be formed that doesn't result in a major electoral hammering for at least one party. Which party will be the one that sacrifices itself in order for us to have a government?

Maybe the Christian Democrats. They're the ones who're big on the whole "died for our sins" thing after all.   

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Maybe another election would answer that question by skipping ahead to the punishment part.

I think maybe we just skip the government part completely. Worked well enough for Belgium that one time. No government that can raise taxes, no government that can have weird IT-related scandals, no government that is dependent on either the radical left or the radical right. Sounds pretty good to me to be honest.

There is no legal time limit on how long the Speaker can wait before using his four tries to get a Prime Minister approved. Why not use the fourth and last try in the summer of 2222.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

As most readers of this thread (hopefully) knows, local elections were held at the same date as the parliamentary elections to the city councils of Sweden's 290 municipalities and local government formations is on-going everywhere.   

Today it was announced that the Sweden Democrats will get their first ever mayor in Sweden in the small town of Hörby in Skåne, were SD polled 35,3% in the election to city council. Whether this will start a trend remains to be seen.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I know. These small towns of Scania are often somewhat  industrial or suburban-exurban. Höör-Hörby area used to be quite Centre-partyish, but not anymore. I just wanted to know whether there is some peculiarity that makes them more sensitive to SD.

The reason that SD pulled their best local election results there is most likely based on local issues. As you noted Hörby used to be a Centre stronghold due to being a strongly agricultural area. The town of Hörby itself has become an exurban commuter town to Malmö, Lund and Kristianstad due to good infrastructure to the three cities and low house prices.

The Moderates had a huge success in the 2006 and 2010 local elections which went to their head and the Moderate Mayor Lars Ahlkvist had a series of scandals, most famously having the municipality pay 600 000 SEK for a portrait of himself as a Roman soldier, and he was eventually forced out by his own party members a few months before the 2014 elections. The Moderates lost more than half of their voters and has been fighting internally since.

After their defeat the Social Democrats took over with a broad coalition containing most parties except the Moderates and the Sweden Democrats. That mayor, funnily enough named Susanne Meijer, managed to become even less popular. In the last few years there has been fights in central Hörby between different groups of immigrants which she handled very poorly by first denying that it was a problem at all, and once she did admit the problem she had a town hall meeting informing the citizens about what the local administration was doing to combat it but didn't allow any critical questions from the audience. During the four-year term most other parties, like the Centre Party, left due to internal disagreements and joined the opposition.

So both the two major parties having lost the public's trust in combination with immigration related problems is probably what allowed the municipality to have exceptional results for SD, even by Skåne standards

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Would anyone happen to have exit polls from September 9th that break down demographics?


Many thanks in advance

Take note, these results reflect the SVT Exit Poll result and have not been reweighed to reflect the final result. 

GENDER:

Women:

V - 11%
S - 29%
Mp - 5%

C - 11%
L - 5%
Kd - 7%
M - 17%

Sd - 14%


Men:

V - 7%
S - 23%
Mp - 3%

C - 8%
L - 6%
Kd - 7%
M - 19%

Sd - 24%

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Would anyone happen to have exit polls from September 9th that break down demographics?


Many thanks in advance

Take note, these results reflect the SVT Exit Poll result and have not been reweighed to reflect the final result. 

AGE:

18-21 years:

V - 12%
S - 20%
Mp - 6%

C - 12%
L - 5%
Kd - 7%
M - 21%

Sd - 13%


22-30 years:

V - 13%
S - 23%
Mp - 5%

C - 11%
L - 4%
Kd - 7%
M - 20%

Sd - 14%


31-64 years:

V - 9%
S - 25%
Mp - 4%

C - 9%
L - 6%
Kd - 7%
M - 18%

Sd - 21%


65+ years:

V - 6%
S - 33%
Mp - 3%

C - 7%
L - 6%
Kd - 10%
M - 15%

Sd - 19%

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Would anyone happen to have exit polls from September 9th that break down demographics?


Many thanks in advance

Take note, these results reflect the SVT Exit Poll result and have not been reweighed to reflect the final result. 

OCCUPATION:

Blue-collar workers:

V - 10%
S - 31%
Mp - 3%

C - 7%
L - 3%
Kd - 6%
M - 13%

Sd - 26%


White-collar workers:

V - 9%
S - 25%
Mp - 5%

C - 10%
L - 7%
Kd - 8%
M - 20%

Sd - 14%


Small-business owners and self-employed:

V - 6%
S - 12%
Mp - 3%

C - 12%
L - 5%
Kd - 9%
M - 26%

Sd - 25%

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Lol Swedish Christian Democrats at 12% in new Sentio poll. What the hell is happening?

C+L supporting Löfven's left wing government, Ebba Busch Thor being more charismatic/popular than Ulf Kristersson to pick up those votes. Also this latest poll was carried out just after KD opened for negotiations with SD on specific policy issues, something all parties had rejected so far. In that way, the party has taken the lead in creating a common right wing alternative to the current majority.

In the Sentio Poll, M-KD-SD have 49.3%, while the current centre-left majority is on 48.0%. And with L and MP under the threshold, there is a clear majority for the conservative opposition.

well it doesn't really matter, we are 3,5 years from next election

From the next ordinary election. An extra election before then is more likely than not.

The Left Party won't trigger an early election if there is any chance of M-KD-SD winning a majority. Can you imagine them voting No confidence  in Löfven and we get a dark blue government. They'd never be forgiven by their own voters.

As for the Liberals, they're more scared of an early election than any other party.

The marriage between the left and the liberal parties might be a shot-gun marriage, but the alternatives for all involved parties would be much worse than sticking it out until the term is over, so I can't see any reason to think there'd be an early election.