The Big Bad Swedish Politics & News Thread

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

The Scandinavian polling firm SKOP has released their last Swedish polls for 2012 and shows that the next Swedish general election, which will take place in one and half a year, is probably going to be an intresting one.

The incumbent government is currently trailing. The four parties in the centre-right Alliance for Sweden together captures 43,9% of voters. The Liberal-Conservative Moderate party would decrease slightly from their historic high in the 2010 election with 29,1%, the People's Party remain fairly stable at 6,2%. The Christian Democrats has their strongest support in any SKOP poll since the 2010 election with 4,7% of the vote, gaining support above the 4% thresh-hold for the first time in over a year. The Christian Democrats rise can be attributed to gains among rural voters who're leaving their traditional choice the Centre party in droves after that party made some very controversial (understatment) policy changes early in December, and managed to fall bellow the thresh-hold at 3,9% support.

Things are looking slightly better for the left-wing opposition, who currently stands at 47,1%. After finally getting a competent likable leader this year, after two disasterous, unpopular and scandal-ridden ones, the Social Democrats are once again picking up steam and lands it-self on 31,5% support. An increase from the previous election. The real star of the left however remain the Green party, who're at historic highs with 10,3%. The Left party remain stable at 5,3%.    

The left would not however gain their own majority. Despite a autumn filled by scandal the Sweden Democrats remain at a high level with 7,8% support and would thus retain their status as the parliament's "scale-tippers".  


Everything is not looking bad for the government however. According to SKOP they still have a good approval rating. 13% of voters say they strongly approve of the governments work, while 45% say they mostly approve. Only 8% say they strongly disapprove of the government, while 16% say they mostly disapprove. With such strong numbers a rebound for the Alliance seems quite likly. The most popular minister is still Finace Minister Anders Borg, quite unusual for a finance minister.  


SKOP has also made a poll about public support for the monarchy. The support remain fairly high with 70% of Swedes saying they want a monarchy, while 23% would instead prefer a Republic.
Most intresting though is that 60% of Swedes think the King should retire from public office and leave the throne to his eldest daughter, Princess Victoria.    


      

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

rural voters who're leaving their traditional choice the Centre party in droves after that party made some very controversial (understatment) policy changes early in December

More details?

Basicly the new platform that the leadership presented took the party in a very Libretairian direction. The three most controversial new positions being:

1) Free-immigration, no regulations or restrictions on immigration at all.
2) No mandatory school, parents who don't want to send their children to school don't have to.
3) Making the federal income-tax flat.

 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Almost sounds like a joke...

Almost?
I read a Social Democratic editorial that said this makes the party look like a bunch of drunken villiage idiots, and I'm not even sure I disagree.

So appealing to their Stockholm yuppie voters rather than their straw-chewing base? Weird.

That has been the party's strategy since before the 2010 election. It's not been very succesful so far.  The support the party has gained in Stockholm has not been near matching the support the party has lost in rural areas. But this is even beyond that. With the exception of the flat-tax I don't think this appeals to anyone, not even Stockholm's upper-class. 

Would you still vote for them?

Yes, all things considered they're still my team and the party that sits closest to my views on most political issues.
 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

If the Christian Dems fall below 4%, does the left get a majority?

Potentionally, but not for certain.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I've got 2 questions for you Swedish Cheese:

1) What kind of "hard right" are the Sweden Democrats? Are they more like UKIP, Geert Wilders or Neo-Nazis?

2) What separates the Moderate, Centre, People's and Christian Democratic parties? The names don't really lend any distinction.

1) They're not Neo-Nazis. By European standards their anti-immigration policies are slightly tamer than your general hard-right, and the party tries to make it's arguments based on opposition to multi-culturalism and nationalism rather than racial supremiacy. They're as anti-EU as they get though.

2) All three parties are quite similar on economic issues these days supporting fiscal responsibility and little government intervention in commerce, and lower taxes. They're set apart by social issues really.

The Christian Democrats oppse abortion and gay rights and support traditional Christian values.

The Centre party is liberal on social issues, and enviormentalist, and want do decentralise the governement and are slightly EU-sceptic. (The only government party not supporting the Euro)

The Moderates are moderate on social issues, they're the strongest supporters for a large military and are more supportive of unions and labour-protection than the rest of the right. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

What's causing the Sweden Democrats surge?

They aren't surgeing as much as they're steadily climbing really. They gained a little for every month since the 2010 election. 7,8% is actually down slightly from some previous polls in 2012. Granted they should be down more considering they've had nothing but bad publicity since mid-june, but then they're not called the Teflon-party for nothing.

Oh Sweden, you used to be so awesome...

Though I am a firm believer in Swedish awsomeness, I'm not sure our history of one-party rule is one of our more awsome sides.    

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

New SKOP poll. This time about the two PM candidates.

Who do you think would be a more skillfull leader as Prime Minister:

Fredrik Reinfeldt    66,4%
Stefan Löfvén         33,6%

Who do you think would be the nicer person to have dinner with:


Fredrik Reinfeldt    57,6%
Stefan Löfvén         42,4%


Though these numbers seem bad for the Löfvén it's worth noting that the previous S leader Håkan Juholt lost to Reinfeldt 13% to 87% on the first question when they polled this a year ago. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

The aforementioned new Centre Party policy changes are opposed by several local party heads and chances are it will be revised to some extent or maybe even trashed altogether. Every party except the Left Party is having a congress next year; the Centre Congress might be the most interesting one.

It will be bloody, I can tell you that.

Welcome to the forum btw. Might I ask where you stand politically?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Generally center-left, at times radical and at times semi-fascist depending on my mood. And thanks.

So an MP voter basicly.
It will be good to have a more center-left Swede on here, both me and Gustaf are right-wingers. 

I guess the Gothenburg riots might have helped the SD even further. I can see that they are on 10 % in the latest poll from SIFO, making them the third-biggest party just infront of the Green party

Gothenburg riots? Those happened twelve years ago. I don't really think they have an impact today. ^^

EDIT: Oh wait, now I realise what you mean. You mean the instagram incident. Doubt that has anything to do with the polls. Unless the Sweden Democrats are also anti-teenagers.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I guess the Gothenburg riots might have helped the SD even further. I can see that they are on 10 % in the latest poll from SIFO, making them the third-biggest party just infront of the Green party

Gothenburg riots? Those happened twelve years ago. I don't really think they have an impact today. ^^

Maybe disturbances would be a better wording, but I'm refering to what happened at and outside the high schools in Gothenburg in December,

Ah yes sorry, I realised that just after I posted. See my edit.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I don't think they are anti-teenagers, but they are anti-immigrant, so as it was predominantly immigrant teenagers I imagine that has helped them further.

I don't think they were predominantly immigrant. I haven't so read anywhere and the pictures I've seen doesn't show the kids to have more immigrants than usual. But I don't know for sure. Do you have a source? 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I don't think they are anti-teenagers, but they are anti-immigrant, so as it was predominantly immigrant teenagers I imagine that has helped them further.

I don't think they were predominantly immigrant. I haven't so read anywhere and the pictures I've seen doesn't show the kids to have more immigrants than usual. But I don't know for sure. Do you have a source? 

Hehe, I certainly wasn't expecting the Swedish newspapers to write so.

Well obviously.
Still if you read between the lines you can usually tell when they are and when they're not. Anyway you might be right. Though I still don't think it has influenced the polls. The SIFO poll was from early December, mostly taken in late November. (That's why C is still above 4% in that poll as well. They announced their new platform the same day as the Gothenburg thing.)

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Is it likely that one of the party from either sides will turn into a support party for the other side, or will both sides generally prefer to rule with an uncertain majority instead?

It's hard to say. I think that if the Alliance is bigger they'll probably prefer to continue in the same fashion as now with making a few grand deals with S on foreign policy, defence, and some other big issues while relying on either the Greens or SD to govern otherwise. (depending on the issue)

No idea what would happen if the center-left is bigger. It's hard to see any of the minor right-wing parties making an official agreement with them and they don't have the same chances with having a succesful uncertain majority as they can't rely on SD-support. S and MP will have some very though negociations if they wish to form a government and they don't have their own majority.


   

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Actually I just realised that SD's rise in polls recently might actually be fueled by something completly different than anti-immigration. It might actually have to do with their other speciality, being anti-EU. It's a long-shot but there might be a correlation.

The European Union has not had good publicity in Sweden recently. It was in a bad position already thanks to the Euro-crisis and the bail-outs and this fall there has just been a storm of news that has been negative for the EU.

First there was the nomination of Tonio Borg to Health and Consumer Commissioner. Borg's for Swedish standards ultra-conservative positions on abortion, divorce and LGBT-rights resulted in quite many articles about the nomination and a lot of calls for Sweden to do its best to stop him getting the position.

Then we had a couple on news stories on EU's 2013 budget and especially Erasmus funding. The story at the time was that Erasmus funding would be dramaticly cut (while subsidies to French farmers would not) and Sweden would probably be asked to pay more money to the EU.

Then the EU had to go and make itself even more unpopular by trying to ban a string of Swedish products that Swedish people like. There was talk about the Swedish special-excemption for the ban of snus not being re-newed. Considering the general conception in Sweden is that the '94 referendum would have failed miserably with-out that special-excemption for Sweden, saying it might expire was not popular.

Then they pissed off us even more by discussing a ban on salmiak in food products. For those who now anything about Scandinavian and Dutch candy, you should now why this was not positive. (It was like telling an American you're thinking of banning bacon.)
Then today we had the news that Julmust might be next-in line for things Swedish people love that the EU wants to take from us.

It's only a theory, but I really think there might be something to it. (Also I'd love a poll on how many Swedes think we should leave the EU, the number at the moment should be rather disasterous.)     

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I expected bad numbers for the pro-EU side. I didn't expect them to be that bad. O.o

Oh please can we have another referendum on this.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

A full out internal war is basicly happening in the Center party right now. Annie Lööf's attempts to cool down the conflict has not been very effective to say the least. For every day that pass I'm more and more convinced that the party will not survive this.

 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

From what I know of Swedish politics, the Center Party used to be the most moderate element of the Alliance. It's sad to see them go completely insane, because they have a useful spot to occupy in the political landscape.

The nice thing about Scandinavia, is that there is always someone who place themselves at the centre. But centre parties do have a tendence to go insane this way thanks to part of their voter segment (urban proffesional) and their ideology (liberalism). So it's good to clean out once in a while when they turn too insane. Denmark could also use that the Social Liberals collapsed, someone other took their position instead.

Is that indicative or conditional? I've not been following Danish politics since the election, did something happen to Radikale Venstre?

Except forcing the goverment to the right on economic issues I haven't heard about them doing anything differently than they did in 2011. In the latest poll I've seen they still poll at 8,9% so they seem pretty stable. 

I'm guessing Ingemann is really professing his personal oppinion of Radikale, rather than the general Danish oppinion. Granted I wouldn't vote for them either, but they don't really seem to be out-of-mainstream compared to other European Green or centre-left leaning social liberals. (Who always seem to be very arrogant) 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Why prop up a center-left administration when they could make Rasmussen PM (again)?

Well for one thing they wouldn't be able to create a centre-right government with-out the Danish People's Party, and Radikale and DF don't get along that well...

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

... which is just embarrassing in so many ways for Expressen.

There's no such thing as shame or embarrasment at Expressen or Aftonbladet. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Why are there no social conservatives? I know Sweden is liberal, but shouldn't the Akeson/the KD leader be more conservative?

Both Hägglund and Åkesson are more liberal on social issues than their respecitive party platforms, and the party platform is more liberal than their parties' bases.

Hägglund was challanged in KD's last leadership election because he was seen as too moderate, but carried the election thanks to his general popularity. 

EDIT: It's also worth noting that Björklund (the People's Party leader) are more social conservative than his party, which is why he appears at the same place as Hägglund and Reinfeldt.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I did the Political Compass for our party leaders. Does this seem correct?

No Romsson?

It's seems mostly correct, but I think Åkesson is certainly more to the right on economics than Löfvén when you take taxes into account. So that doesn't seem quite right.

Hägglund seems to have gotten too libretairian on there too. He isn't as Conservative as Åkesson, but certainly more so than Björklund or Reinfeldt considering he's pro-life and against same-sex marriage while they are not.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I was somewhat surprised by the placing of the party leaders on the Political Compass. Is Reinfeldt now (slightly) to the left  of the leaders of the other 'bourgeois' parties, when it comes to economic policy? And is this true for the parties in general as well - i.e. are Centerpartiet and Folkpartiet now to the right of Moderaterna in many aspects?

Yes and yes.

And welcome to the forum. ^^

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Sifo (the most reliable pollster in Sweden) has released their first 2013 poll.

The Centre party has their worst poll result ever in a Sifo poll while the Christian Democrats are picking up enough support from them to pull themselves over the 4% line.

Alliance: 43,2%

M: 29,3%
FP: 6,2%
KD: 4,5%
C: 3,2%

Centre-left: 47,2%

S: 33,6%
MP: 9,0%
V: 4,6%

Sweden Democrats: 9,1%

SD would be the third largest party, barely beating the Greens.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

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It awards large parties, is neutral to medium-sized parties and punishes small parties, so my guess is S and M would get a few more seats, MP and SD would be the same, and FP, KD, and V would get less.

If your seat acollation calculator is in excel you can modify it to the Swedish system. (Not that it'd be completly reliable either due to not taking into account constituency level results.)

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

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Added seat changes from the 2010 election.