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

[Tender Branson]

I agree with David here ...

The SD should have a big day tomorrow, but I'm not sure if it will be enough for first place.

Still, I cannot imagine they will get a better result than the FPÖ.

I also agree that an M-led minority government, backed by KD and L and maybe the SD on some issues is much more likely than a continuation of Red-Green. If the recent years and events are any indicator, I think Swedish voters will liquidate Red-Green tomorrow.

[Tender Branson]

After the debate, the post-debate host at SVT, Martina Nord said that Jimmie Åkesson had been "blatantly stereotyping" in his remarks on immigration, and that SVT, the state broadcaster, dissociates itself from those remarks. This is completely crazy. That a state broadcaster actively attacks one party straight after the most important debate of the campaign. Crazy. Atleast SD doesn't need to worry about a campaign point and attention for the last hours of the campaign.

Here's more about the last-minute Jimmie Åkesson / SVT spat and what it's all about:

During the final debate, Åkesson said the following: "Why do immigrants in Sweden have such a high unemployment rate ? Because they are not Swedish, they do not belong here. And because of that, nobody hires them."

... which caused the SVT TV channel to disassociate themselves (!) from his comments.

Not sure why a TV channel would have to disassociate from free speech or a debate comment by a major party leader. The comment wasn't even racist or particularly extremist. More like the plain truth. In fact, Sweden has one of the widest gaps among Western countries between the native Swedish unemployment rate (some 3-4%) and that of immigrants (some 15-20%). The overall unemployment rate is some 7% right now.

[Tender Branson]

After the debate, the post-debate host at SVT, Martina Nord said that Jimmie Åkesson had been "blatantly stereotyping" in his remarks on immigration, and that SVT, the state broadcaster, dissociates itself from those remarks. This is completely crazy. That a state broadcaster actively attacks one party straight after the most important debate of the campaign. Crazy. Atleast SD doesn't need to worry about a campaign point and attention for the last hours of the campaign.

Here's more about the last-minute Jimmie Åkesson / SVT spat and what it's all about:

During the final debate, Åkesson said the following: "Why do immigrants in Sweden have such a high unemployment rate ? Because they are not Swedish, they do not belong here. And because of that, nobody hires them."

... which caused the SVT TV channel to disassociate themselves (!) from his comments.

Not sure why a TV channel would have to disassociate from free speech or a debate comment by a major party leader. The comment wasn't even racist or particularly extremist. More like the plain truth. In fact, Sweden has one of the widest gaps among Western countries between the native Swedish unemployment rate (some 3-4%) and that of immigrants (some 15-20%). The overall unemployment rate is some 7% right now.

Those comments are xenophobic even if they were correct, when you're a political leaders your words are powerful and he should've been extremely careful with his language,

Ehm, he's the leader of a xenophobic party.

Should a Socialist politician not talk about Socialism, but instead talk about excessive capitalism ?

Should a Green Party politician talk about how to pollute the oceans with more plastic ?

[Tender Branson]

Early voting is very popular in Sweden and "Radio Sweden" reports that until yesterday a new record has been set.

In 2014, about 42% voted before election day - a number that will be closer to 50% this year.

[Tender Branson]

Btw, "Radio Sweden" has a few interesting English language contents such as the "Political Compass" where you can find out which party you are closest to:

https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6981866

And interviews in English with each party leader:

https://sverigesradio.se/sida/gruppsida.aspx?programid=2054&grupp=27436

[Tender Branson]

Your party sympathies in percent, based on your answers:

75% S
63% MP
59% FI
58% V

47% SD
46% M
39% C
39% L
35% KD

[Tender Branson]

Annie Lööf interrupting: How can you talk in this way!?!?!

[Tender Branson]

A representative of the Danish public broadcaster DR said they would never make such a statement to dissociate themselves from a politician making such a statement.

There's a big difference between DR and SVT.

SVT was fined by the Broadcasting Authority last year for failing to distance themselves from a similarly racist comment by another Sweden Democrat, Mattias Karlsson, made in a debate in Aktuellt. So with that in mind, it's understandable why they acted as they did on Friday, they simply want to avoid getting fined again.

SVT's broadcasting permit includes what is referred to as a "democracy paragraph", which reads roughly as follows: "[SVT] has an obligation to distance themselves from or respond to anti-democratic expressions and combat racial prejudice, violence and brutality"

How ridiculous is that ?? ??

Even "Radio Sweden", SVT's sister radio station, reports the following:

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https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=99&artikel=7036815

So, "Radio Sweden" is allowed to post a full article stating the obvious facts on their website, but Jimmie Åkesson is not allowed to do so in a debate because of some dubious politically correct "democracy paragraph" ?

[Tender Branson]

Btw, the polls are now open and close at 8pm local time (2pm Eastern).

[Tender Branson]

Early voting:

2.75 million people have voted early vs. 2.67 million in 2014 and 2.38 million in 2010.

7.49 million people are eligible to vote vs. 7.33 million in 2014 and 7.12 million in 2010.

[Tender Branson]

A representative of the Danish public broadcaster DR said they would never make such a statement to dissociate themselves from a politician making such a statement.

There's a big difference between DR and SVT.

SVT was fined by the Broadcasting Authority last year for failing to distance themselves from a similarly racist comment by another Sweden Democrat, Mattias Karlsson, made in a debate in Aktuellt. So with that in mind, it's understandable why they acted as they did on Friday, they simply want to avoid getting fined again.

SVT's broadcasting permit includes what is referred to as a "democracy paragraph", which reads roughly as follows: "[SVT] has an obligation to distance themselves from or respond to anti-democratic expressions and combat racial prejudice, violence and brutality"

How ridiculous is that ?? ??

Even "Radio Sweden", SVT's sister radio station, reports the following:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=99&artikel=7036815

So, "Radio Sweden" is allowed to post a full article stating the obvious facts on their website, but Jimmie Åkesson is not allowed to do so in a debate because of some dubious politically correct "democracy paragraph" ?

"They are not Swedish, they do not belong here"

There are no facts involved in that statement. It's racism, plain and simple.

Usually SD are good at hiding their racism in debates and speeches, but Åkesson really showed their true colours there.

Sorry, but that's what I wrote ... my Swedish (and that of Google Translate) is not that good yet.

Let's use Diouf's translation instead. I think he understands Swedish much better than I do:

Precise description and translation:

Jimmie Åkesson: "If only the immigrants get jobs, then everything will solve itself". That is what all the others (pointing at other party leaders) have always said. But that still isn't happening. Therefore one must ask why it is so hard for these people to get a job. That is because these people are not Swedish. They don't fit into Sweden. It is obvious that it is then hard to get a job.

Annie Lööf interrupting: How can you talk in this way!?!?!

Jimmie Åkesson: It is obvious that it is then hard to get a job. You have to actually do what is required to become Swedish.

"They don't fit into Sweden." is not the same as my faulty translation: "They do not belong."

What Åkesson says here is that a large number of immigrants have problems integrating into Swedish society because their culture is so different to the Swedish one, which creates all kinds of problems, incl. not being hired by Swedish companies.

That is something totally legitimate to say and is far from racist. Immigrants are not a race either. You should clearly be able to speak about these problems on SVT, without being disassociated. Why would a Swedish insurance company boss for example hire a Muslim immigrant from Somalia or Pakistan, who doesn't speak Swedish, wears a niqab at work and refuses to take it off ? Or a male one who refuses to speak or co-operate with the other sex because of his perverted religious views ?

[Tender Branson]

I am Swedish, I watched the debate on friday and understood what he said perfectly well, so I don't need it explained to me by you or anyone else thank you very much.

He said that the reason immigrants don't get jobs is because they're not Swedish, because they don't belong. Then, when Annie Lööf and other party leaders reacted to his blatant racism he tried to walk it back by talking about language education and all that other stuff, but it doesn't change what he said.

Just like Mattias Karlsson's talk about "hundreds of thousands of rapists coming here" and Richard Jomshof's talk about how they have to moderate their rhetoric for the moment because "Sweden isn't Hungary - yet", it shows just what kind of party SD is.

While the SD's talk about immigrants often gets too excessive and extreme, in essence, he's right about what he says about many immigrants who recently arrived and how far removed they are from Swedish culture.

You are really disputing the fact that because of the 100.000s of additional immigrants from Africa and the Middle-East, rapes did not increase in Sweden by a lot ? You dispute the fact that immigrants from these areas now account for 80% of rape suspects these days ? You dispute the fact that these raped Swedish women would be un-raped now if these immigrants would have been kept out of the country in the first place ?

Please WAKE UP for once and stop tolerating these abuses to the Swedish people.

[Tender Branson]

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.

[Tender Branson]

Jimmie Åkesson (SD) just told reporters "he feels very optimistic about today and expects up to 30% of the vote."

Whatever this means ...

[Tender Branson]

Tv4 will publish an exit poll at 19.45

Isn't that illegal ?

[Tender Branson]

When will we have the first results?

At around 10pm to midnight.

I don't put much credibility into the exit polls ...

[Tender Branson]

Actual vote count:

https://data.val.se/val/val2018/valnatt/R/rike/index.html

Also: please ignore the exit polls for now.

[Tender Branson]

0 of 6.004 precincts counted so far.

[Tender Branson]

2 districts counted and M dropped almost 15% compared with 2014, SD increased 9.3%.

I think that the SVT exit poll once again underestimated the SD by about 3-4%, but it's still early.

I think the real vote count will put them to around 22-23% (which would be like my prediction).

[Tender Branson]

Since the government website is slow and breaking down all the time, use the SVT results page:

https://valresultat.svt.se/2018/10000.html

[Tender Branson]

Good page with maps and changes compared with previous elections:

https://www.di.se/val/

[Tender Branson]

Here is just the map for towns + changes compared with 2014:

http://ext.di.se/val2018/partiresultat.html

It's interesting that SD does not gain more than 13% so far in the cities counted.

Which means they will never go above 25-26% nationally. Most of their gains seems to be in the 8% range, which would point to a 21% result nationally.

1 town (Mariestad) has a decline compared with 2014 so far.

The highest increase so far is in Klippan with +12.5%

[Tender Branson]

At the bottom of the site you can click on:

Störst/minst stöd = strongest/weakest town for each party

Ökat/minskat mest = biggest gains/losses in each town compared with 2014

Select the party by clicking on their logo.

http://ext.di.se/val2018/partiresultat.html

[Tender Branson]

Only the clickable map:

http://ext.di.se/val2018/index.html

[Tender Branson]

About 10% of the 6.000 precincts have been counted, but that is only 6.5% of the expected vote of 6.3 million so far.