Leader of the Swedish Social Democrats resign... again.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Gonna beat Gustaf for this one.

Håkan Juholt, the leader of the Swedish Scoial Democratic Labour Party resigned earlier today after several scandals, record low numbers in oppinion polls and a month of heavy critisism. Håkan Juholt has been the leader of the party for less than a year, being elected to replace unpopular leader Mona Sahlin last March in one of the most horrible and hilarious leadership elections in modern Swedish history.

More on this later.

PS: This just confirms even more that this party has turned into a party of clowns.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Eh... the SAP has all kinds of longterm issues (some the usual stuff, quite a bit also relating to simply not being used to losing elections) and you can read pages about it on the 2010 election thread, but sometimes a serious scandal is just a serious scandal. And I think there have been other scandals (less serious? I've not been following things all that closely so may be wrong about that) involving Juholt as well.

You're of course correct that it was the expense scandal that started all of it, but the final straw for Juholt was actually more of an internal affair about the shadow budget. Basicly the SAP first created a budget that they were planning to introduce to parliament, but it was blocked by Juholt because he thought too much money was added to social benefits, and that they'd be attacked for being a welfere queen party. The budget was remade and a more moderate proposal was introduced in parliament. It caused a revolt among left-wing memebers and the proposal had to be redrawn and a proposal quite similar to the first budget was introduced instead.

Now this would just have been seen as a power struggle within the party if it had not been for the fact Juholt lied and said there had never been a first proposal that he had blocked.

Pissing of the left-wing base coupled with record low polling numbers... no one survives that.

More on this later.

Do you want to use the old thread on the IE board or start a fresh one?

Either that or a General Swedish Politics thread. That'd be if anyone is intrested in a General Swedish Politics thread.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Actually I'd sort of compare the current situation of the Social Democrats at the moment to the Tories during the late 90's to early 00's. They're the old natural party of goverment who can't seem to compete with the new moderate opponents, are seen as backwards and old, have huge internal divisions. I'm sure there's lots of flaws in that comparation, but there are actually a lot of parallels.   

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

He always acted like that, or he begin after he bacame the leader?

He wasn't really a well known or public politician before becoming leader... so who knows.

How could SDs elect such a joke ?

I think you mean SAP SD is a racist populist party, so them electing jokes are hardly surprising.

As to why the SAP elected Juholt, well... desperation. All the A-list candidates such as Thomas Bodström, Margot Wallström, Pär Nuder, Leif Pagrotsky turned it down. While people such as Tomas Östros, Ibrahim Baylan were seen as too close to Sahlin. Michael Damberg was too young and too right-wing. Veronica Palm was too young and too left-wing. Carin Jämtin (who's the intrim leader right now) already proved what a terrible leader she'd be as the SAP mayoral candidate for Stockholm.

That left Österberg, the moderate, inoffensive, parliamentry group leader who everyone knew would make no-one excited but who'd not cause any great scandals either, and Juholt.

They took a gamble and lost big time.   

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

New oppinion poll out today from Novus:

M: 35,6%
C: 5,4
Kd: 3,4%
Fp: 5,8%

Alliance: 50,2%

S: 22,9%
Mp: 12,1%
V: 7,6%
Sd: 6,0%

Opposition: 48,6%

V is increasing, meaning S(AP) is now bleeding towards the left as well, not just to the centre. What happens first, S under 20 or V over 10. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Anyway, they seem to be going for Löfven now.

It's another gamble, not sure they can afford that at the moment.  He's as unknown as Juholt, even more unvetted and has never held any position of political leadership. Granted he seems stable, but then back in March both you and I were saying Juholt seemed like a decent choice, although a bit goofy.

This whole business is sort of sad. In the past year the Greens, the Centre Party, and the Left Party (the three doesn't add up to the sieze of the SAP at its weakest when combined) has managed to find new leaders that are all more competent, more experienced, and more charismatic than the ones this party is even considering. 

 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Oh and Löfven is not a member of Parliament, meaning he's not going to be the real leader of the opposition... that'll be Sven-Erik Österberg.