National PoliticsPolitics

Swedish Elections: All You Need To Know

On 9th September, Swedish citizens will be called to vote in the general elections, which will elect the members of the Riksdag. These will in turn elect the Prime Minister of Sweden for the next four years. The Riksdag is the national parliament and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been unicameral with 349 members, who are elected from party lists according to proportional representation from the country’s twenty-nine electoral constituencies.
Regional and municipal elections are held on the same day as the general elections all across the country.

The 2018 elections promise to be a nail-biter, with the far-right Sweden Democrats potentially becoming the 3rd or 2nd largest party.

MAIN PARTIES

1 – The Social Democrats

Social Democrats
Social Democrats

The Social Democrats (S) have spent the last four years in government, together with the Green Party (MP, Miljöpartiet). Rather astoundingly Stefan Löfven (leader of S) opted to keep the Left Party (V, Vänsterpartiet) out of government. With only 37.9% of the popular vote and 138 out of 349 seats (39.5%) in the Riksdag, the Löfven Cabinet is one of the weakest minority governments in Swedish history, and as such they have been forced to rely heavily on the support of other parties, and have not been able to implement a lot of policies they set out to do following the election victory.

 

2 – The Moderate Party

Moderate Party logo
Moderate Party Logo

The Moderate Party (M) under Fredrik Reinfeldt ruled Sweden between 2006 and 2014. It was a coalition cabinet consisting of the four parties in the centre-right Alliance for Sweden: the Moderate Party, Centre Party (C), Liberal People’s Party (L) and the Christian Democrats (KD). The cabinet was installed on 6th October 2006, following the 2006 general election which ousted the Social Democrats after twelve years in power. It retained power after the 2010 general election but only as a minority government, and is the longest-serving consecutive non-social democratic Swedish government since Erik Gustaf Boström’s in 1900.

While they managed to keep power for two consecutive terms, the Reinfeldt Cabinet was shaky from the start. On October 7th, 2006, the day after the new cabinet was announced two of the ministers, the Minister for Foreign Trade Maria Borelius and the Minister for Culture Cecilia Stegö Chilò, admitted that they had previously employed persons to take care of their children without paying the appropriate taxes. On October 11th, 2006, it came to light that Cecilia Stegö Chilò and her husband had not paid their TV license for the last 16 years. On October 12th, 2006, it emerged that two other ministers in the cabinet had neglected to pay the television license.

3 – The Sweden Democrats

Sweden Democrats logo
Sweden Democrats logo

The Sweden Democrats was founded in 1988. The party has its roots in Swedish fascism and was a part of the white supremacy neo-Nazi movement through the early-1990s when it first began distancing itself from its past. Since 2014 the party has substantially increased its support among both foreign-born and foreign-background voters, becoming the third largest party in Sweden also among this demographic by 2017. Despite hard efforts by current party leader Jimmie Åkesson to “clean” up the party, it has been stained by several major scandals.

 Jimmie Åkesson
Jimmie Åkesson

In November 2012, party spokesperson Erik Almqvist resigned after he had been caught on tape making racist and sexist statements. Another video later surfaced, showing how Almqvist, in addition to party spokesperson Kent Ekeroth and party official Christian Westling were arming themselves with aluminium pipes before they sought out a confrontation with Soran Ismail, a Swedish comedian of Kurdish descent. In November 2013, parliamentarian and then vice party leader Jonas Åkerlund gained attention for having called immigrants “parasites” during a broadcast on SD’s own radio station in 2002, after the recording was publicly rediscovered.

In September 2014, a few weeks before the general election, the party chairman of the local Stockholm branch, Christoffer Dulny, resigned from his position. He had been posting mocking comments about immigrants, calling them “shameless liars” on alternative media sites. And just a few days ago, Jimmie Åkesson attacked a national radio station, P3, calling them a left-liberal channel, slamming them as a worthless radio station posting “fake news”.

Despite these and other incidents, their hardcore anti-immigration policies and promises to improve the situation for the elderly, people working in health care, and other “exposed” demographics have allowed them to garner a lot of popular support.

POLLS

Forecasts see the current governmental parties, S and MP polling around 30% together, with the Left Party scoring 10%. Despite scoring so low, S is still the largest party in Sweden, closely followed by the Sweden Democrats at around 20%, and the Moderate Party at 18%.

The four centre-right parties (excluding the Sweden Democrats) together rack up around 37%, which would not be enough to gain a workable majority.

The Left Party and the Sweden Democrats will likely be in a position to bargain for important roles in the Swedish cabinet, as they could greatly aid a government. With that said, the Left Party would most likely not support a non-social democratic government, and so far, no centre-right party have made any attempt to gather favor with the Sweden Democrats.

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Tobias Lundqvist

CNC-Operator poring over maps and dusty books in his spare time. Loves writing about history, especially Antiquity and the World Wars.

Tullio Pontecorvo

Student of political science and international relations, co-founder of My Country? Europe. Aspiring sci-fi author. Believes shooting aliens in the face to be the ultimate form of gaming.

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