The Final Results From Sweden's Elections

For all those who have been following them...

For those of you that haven't yesterday Sweden went to the polls to choose a new national government, county administrations and local councils. The result was interesting, because it has confirmed that the social-democratic Social Democratic Swedish Labour Party (SDP) is no longer the dominant force that it once was. Even as late as 1991 the SDP's support hadn't fallen below 40% since the 1920s when the party first rose to the forefront of Swedish political life, and prior to 2006, when in the last elections its coalition with the radical-socialist Left Party was defeated by the Alliance for Sweden (a motley grouping of non-socialist, mostly liberal, political parties) it had governed alone, or as the major party in a coalition for 71 of the previous 80 years.

As such, to quote The Economist, are we witnessing 'The Strange Death of SocialDemocratic Sweden'? I for one sure as hell hope so. The Swedes whilst naturally the sort of society "that bands together", as many northern societies are want to do, have been taken for granted for to long by the sclerotic SDP, who whilst still nominally a Marxist party, like their German cousins, presented to the electorate a manifesto not radically dissimilar to that of the Moderates, Sweden's Anglophile Tory equivalents. The Swedes are now mostly white collar workers (having imported an underclass) and old style socialism cannot appeal to their information led society. We are after all talking about the country which gave the world the Pirate Party concept. A better educated and informed Swedish society is also less likely to listen to the dictates of the social democratic technocrats who over the last 100 years have given them sturdy, but not homely, far from homely, suburbs, a disastrous record with regards to the human rights of mental health patients and those incarcerated in other state institutions, and that sterilised around 5% of the adult population in the hope of creating that holy grail of 20th Century social "science": the ubermensch, whilst all the while hobnobbing with Nazis and Soviets and 'palling around with' (note that's the last time I'll ever quote Sarah Palin) the PLO and other terrorist organisations.

A more humane and human centred Sweden awaits us, even if the tax rates and unemployment cheques are a few percentage points lower.

The Results of the Election as Declared:

Parliamentary
Party Percentage Mandates Seat Number Change +/-
SDP 30.8 113 -17
Moderates 30.0 107 +10
Greens 7.2 25 +6
LPP* 7.1 24 -4
Centre 6.6 22 -7
SwedDem* 5.7 20 +20
ChristDem* 5.6 19 -5
Left 5.6 19 -3
Others 1.4 0 N/C

*(LPP) Liberal People's Party, social-liberal member of Alliance for Sweden
*(SwedDem) Swedish Democrats, far-right populists ala Front Nationale, OVP, Dutch "Fortyunist" parties.
*(ChristDem) Christian Democrats, conservative Christian member of the Alliance for Sweden

*Crucially the Alliance has 172 seats, the Red-Red-Greens have 157 (out of 349) as such, with the Alliance already in place as the government it is their move first.*

One notable thing about the result other than the decline in the SDP's fortunes is the rise of the Swedish Democrats, a deeply reactionary party. They appear to have drawn a fair bit of support from the SDP (from disaffected white working class people) and the Christian Democrats (whose more right-wing but less Christian supporters may well have defected). The liberal Centre Party and LPP lost some support to the Moderates (their larger coalition partner) and the moderately leftist but forward looking Green Party, which did less well than predicted, but increased its share of the vote to become the county's third party, albeit far behind the twin giants of the SDP and the Moderates.

One thing that the Swedes should be aware of is that their current quite decent spread of parties could become less diverse if, in part thanks to the Alliance for Sweden and the Red-Green-Red grouping their political system becomes polarised between a red SDP and a blue Moderate party. Whilst their proportional system sustains diversity it doesn't necessarily guarantee it, as the experience in Spain, Portugal and Austria can testify. The liberals who back the LPP, Centre Party and who make up an important constituency for both the Greens and the Moderates would be well advised to note this, especially in the light of the experience in the UK and other countries where liberals, despite making up a large proportion of the electorate and the country's polity, institutions and ruling class being essentially 'liberal' in construction and outlook, they have been marginalised for much of the last 80 years.

Ideally what we would hope to see is the Green Party, LPP and Centre Party, along with newcomers like the Pirates, bite into the support of the SDP so that as in Belgium (and increasingly Germany) they are marginalised and old style socialism destroyed. Hopefully the Moderates will in time undergo a similar process, since the party's commitment to liberty is at best dubious. They are after all not a liberal party.

It is well worthwhile having a look at the results for different localities (in Swedish Kommunval), they throw up some interesting results. For instance in Trollhatten, home to Volvo and Saab the SDP won 51% of the vote! By contrast in Uppsala, Sweden's answer to Oxford, the Greens won 12%, the LPP 10% and the Centre Party 8%.