The headlines from this evening’s Swedish election result will no doubt involve claims that the far-right Swedish Democrat party holds the balance of power. Such circulation-boosting sensationalism from news outlets is something we in the UK should be used to from the experience of a BNP that gained more exposure than its lowly position ever deserved.
It is infact the Green Party that holds the balance of power in Sweden with the result expected to be:
Alliance – 49.3%
Social Democrats/Left – 36.5%
Greens – 7.2%
Swedish Democrats – 5.7%
The ruling Alliance has a couple of options without the support of the Greens of course. It could rule as a minority Government and ‘dare’ the red-Green coalition to vote with the toxic Swedish Democrats to deliver its agenda. The unlikelihood of such an approach is matched by the improbability of the Alliance’s second option – dealing with the racists directly themselves.
So contact with the Greens by the Alliance has been made as Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt would clearly rather work with a stable majority than a vulnerable minority.
Having Ministerial positions would be a massive promotion for the Swedish Greens (who were the 7th largest party in 2006-10) but their leader has already said publicly that they’d struggle to look their voters in the eye if a deal was done. Again, we in the UK can understand this logic as we have seen Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems plummet in the polls since they sold out many of their voters back in May.
However, the Swedish Greens have a wider chasm to cross as they actively campaigned alongside the red Social Democrats for a left coalition.
One extra aspect of this already complicated drama is that the Greens could use the presence of the widely detested, far-right Swedish Democrats as political cover for dealing with the Alliance, assuming the rationale of combatting Climate Change is somehow insufficient for the Swedes, of course.
So an intriguing evening and more twists to come but if the Greens can go from 7th to 3rd and then on to a Government role then there would be one clear winner from Valet 2010.
#1 by Tom Miller on September 20, 2010 - 2:39 am
Technically you are correct, thankfully, but the way you have the polling down isn’t immediately helpful. The Greens are part of the left/social democrat alliance; they would have to peel away from that to join the Government. I support the Social Democrats, but I actually think that would be the right thing for the Greens to do if they can get a decent deal on environmental policy and privatisation from Reinfeldt.
#2 by Jeff on September 20, 2010 - 8:09 am
Thanks Tom. I was trying to show the specific position the Greens were in but agree the breakdown may not be ideal.
Either way, it’s good to see that Social Democrats can open-mindedly see what the result may mean for their coalition partner Greens. Had the same result been in the UK then I would suspect that entrenched partisan stubbornness would kick in. For example, I floated the idea that the Parliament would break down to a Swedish friend and she dismissed the idea immediately, confident that the parties would maturely work something out.
How refreshing. Could Sweden bottle that and sell it to the UK/Scotland?
#3 by BM on September 20, 2010 - 8:51 am
I said before on your previous blog that I didn’t expect SD to break the 5% barrier. I am disappointed to say that I was wrong. I await the voting breakdown, particularly with regards to age, income-band, educational attainment, and location. I found out just yesterday that around 20% of Malmö’s resident are Muslim, so comparing voting patterns there with Bradford or Tower Hamlets would be interesting.
I’m at the edge of my seat, waiting for the official results.
#4 by Jeff on September 20, 2010 - 12:18 pm
Yep, I hadn’t really formed an opinion but still would have hoped that people would have fallen behind Alliance or Red/Green as the poll date neared. Alas it wasn’t to be.
It will indeed be interesting to see where this 5.7% SD-vote came from and why but I still hope they don’t dominate the news of this election for the days and weeks to come. Infact, in many ways the result is in line and perhaps even a little below the standard set by other European countries in recent elections where far-right parties have got in so it’s hardly a strictly Swedish problem.
There seems to be good breakdowns already for certain areas (the Feminist Initiative picked up 8.9% in Simrishamn for example). I’ll post the link when I get a chance.
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#5 by BM on September 23, 2010 - 10:31 am
The official results will be posted here: http://www.val.se/val/val2010/slutresultat/R/rike/index.html
As of now, there are about 30 constituencies still to return, but a lot of data is available, nonetheless.
SD received well above average support in SkÃ¥ne and Blekinge. Malmö (the SkÃ¥ne-constituency where immigration is highest) had the least support for SD of the group of five constituencies. It’s hard to get demographic breakdowns for SkÃ¥ne, but the other three Scanian constituencies are not particularly densely packed with immigrants. They range from below average to average.
Blekinge municipality lines up exactly with the constituency, so we can do a bit more sophisticated analysis using the Swedish Government’s Office of Statistics. Blekinge has a below-average to average immigrant population, but what is remarkable about the population of native-born Swedes, is that it is unusually top-heavy. Pensioners make up a very large chunk of the population. Could they be the ones voting SD? SD presented voters a false choice: money for immigrants vs. money for the elderly. Could it be that this strategy has worked? It’s easy to scape-goat immigrants when you don’t know any…
#6 by James on September 25, 2010 - 11:37 am
As you point out, Jeff, Jimmie doesn’t “hold the balance of power”. Where two large parties fall short of a majority, a centrist party without significant principled attachment to either does indeed hold that position.
In a five-party system like Holyrood where the Tories regularly used to line up with the SNP and the Liberals with Labour, the two Green MSPs have indeed held the balance of power on a wide range of topics.
This result in Sweden isn’t that, it just looks like a right-wing minority government, one that can take issue-by-issue support from wherever it can find it, or jettison it if need be.
#7 by Jeff on September 25, 2010 - 1:59 pm
Thanks for that BM. I’ll admit I’ve not had much time to look intonit and don’t even know what the final results are now the revisions have taken place. I believe it’s the first time a bloc has won over half the votes of the qualifying parties but do not collect over half
the seats. There was even talk of a rerun on a Swedish radio show apparently, sounds fanciful if course.
On the Swedish Democrats, sounds like you were right on Malmo. There’s a very good article on who voted SD and why in The Guardian today. Seems to be all ages but definitely in the South.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/24/sweden-immigration-far-right-asylum
Henning Mankell – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/24/sweden-democrats-far-right-election