Swedish Elections

**Vladimir** · 09-19-2006, 01:08

Well Tribes has a thread on the German election so I'll post one on the Swedish election. I can't find today's story but it seems like the leftists are out and conservatives are in.

Conservatives Take Lead in Swedish Election

STOCKHOLM, Sept. 17 — Sweden appeared set to sweep away 12 years of center-left government today, voting to reject its longtime prime minister, Goran Persson, in favor of a conservative candidate who has pledged to renew the Swedish welfare state.

Bye bye lefties

. Just kidding, I'm pretty ignorant about European politics, much less Scandinavian.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/wo...rtner=homepage

That first paragraph confuses the hell out of me but oh well.

**Kralizec** · 09-19-2006, 01:13

I take it you're confused by this piece?

in favor of a conservative candidate who has pledged to renew the Swedish welfare state.

It's no surprise that even Swedens right wing politicians are quite leftist by global standards, the Swedish are quite fond of their welfare state, so for any politician to say they want to disband/change it would be political suicide.

**Vladimir** · 09-19-2006, 01:23

Ya, that was it. When I look at "welfare state" I want to spit on the ground but I guess it has a positive connotation there. I was thinking that he meant to revive or reinvigorate the Swedish State and therefore improve it's welfare system. Either that or they're just too addicted to it that it's become part of Sweden's official name.

I really don't know how the hell he's going to do it.

**CBR** · 09-19-2006, 02:49

Yes welfare state has a postive meaning up here in the cold north. Only young idealist ultra liberalists would have the guts to openly say they want to dismantle it

CBR

**Ironside** · 09-19-2006, 19:03

To make a short summary.

A. People is fed up with Göran Persson, he's that type that you're either with, or ends up on diplomatic posts in Brazil (not the ideologue type, more the supreme ruler type). Has some political skills though.

B. The right-wing parties did an early declaration of an alliance (the main right-wing party (the Moderates) has also been claiming going left) and has showed an unusual unified front outwards, while the Left party and the Greens have been on the offensive when on political influence (they have a bit of wacky feeling about them, so they having too much influence scares people off), making the left looking fractionised

C. The main issue in this election was the jobs, or the fail to create them. It has been alot of talking about hiding unemployment by "labour market measurements", early retirements etc, etc. Poor defence on that thing from the Social Democrats, combined with people feeling that there's a point in there...

That the short summary, now for some minor ramblings:

Vladimir, his (him = Fredrik Reinfeldt, leader of the Moderates and mmost likely our new prime minister) renewal of the welfare state is basically based on "more jobs, more jobs, but no tax cuts atm, we need the money to fix poor stuff and maintain the good ones".

And he does have some policies you would like, like selling out public companies that "interfere with compition unfairly" (state owned companies has a bit of a mixed bag here, some have costed the consumer/taxpayer a lot, some has been major success stories after getting state owned and privatisation of companies, de-regulation of markets has been getting the same mix), wants profit based emergency hospitals

, and is going to cut down on the benefits you get as unemployed.

Oh and the right is blue and the left is red here (how did the Republicans end up with the Socialistic/Communistic red anyway?)

Personally I'm not sure on this election. While I feel that Persson needed to go, (and that he does, he has resigned as party leader

) my hopes lies in that the right doesn't mess things up too much before a vitalized Socialdemocratic movement wins the next election. Huh, me on the left what're you talking about?

Don't like Rienfeldt though and I know for sure that he doesn't understand the left.
He has been trying to connect the (generally pacifistic) Left party with communists (of the SU type) on a military decision (they opposed the dismanteling of a military base, that was dropped due to budget reasons). Tell me, who would make the worse decision, the militaristic SU or the pacifistic left?
And when Yasser Arafat died, he did get the question on why the Social Democats (it was clear that the question was about Göran Persson, the man that makes the center-left claim in the origainal article not wrong) celebrated Arafat, he responded with that people belonging with the radical left had an army uniform fetish. I mean, only making half the population belonging the the radical left and having a fetish for leaders in army uniform.

**Vladimir** · 09-19-2006, 19:32

Good info, thanks. I still want to visit Sweden some day but there's no way I'd want to live there.

**yesdachi** · 09-19-2006, 19:41

How did the topic of immigration fit into the election?

**Spetulhu** · 09-19-2006, 20:29

BTW, don't you have Party Lists in Sweden? That is, people can't vote for individuals, only for parties. The party has a list of the butt-kissers that get in for this high an amount of votes.

**Ironside** · 09-19-2006, 21:09

Originally Posted by yesdachi

How did the topic of immigration fit into the election?

Very little on national level actually. On local level quite much more. For example, Sverigedemokraterna did for example increase considerbly this election (they're basically saying that all problems in Sweden is due to low levels of nationalism and immigration, of thier 7 main points in this election was only one not directly linked to one of those), mostly in those municipalities with severe immigration problems (isolation, ghettoisation etc).

Originally Posted by Spetulhu

BTW, don't you have Party Lists in Sweden? That is, people can't vote for individuals, only for parties. The party has a list of the butt-kissers that get in for this high an amount of votes.

If I'm reading this right then yeah.

Basically you vote for the party, but "recently" (98 or 02) they implemented names on those lists so that you can vote for a speciffic person in that party. You need quite a bit of personal votes to make a diffence though. There isn't much personal campaigns up here either.

But anyone can start a party, even the day before the election, although reaching out for votes at such short notice can be problematic though