Swedish Elections today

Social
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There’s 8 parties there - the 9th block in grey is ‘övrig’ - others

Ok, this is tricky but, from left to right

V - Vänsterpartiet
Left party, split from the Social Democrats in the 20s. Called themselves communists up until 1990. Main current policies; renationalisation of schools, hospitals, elderly care, transport etc. Anti militarism, pro-feminist. For higher tax on business and lower income tax. Increased dramatically due to voters returning from the feminist party who dared not waste their vote on the party falling under the 4% and therefore outside govt

S - Social Democrats
Traditional Socialist party in Sweden and Sweden’s biggest party historically. Could compare them to Labour - they come from a similar trade union background. Currently with Stefan Löfven in charge they are pretty close to what a Corbyn Labour might look like but they have been further to the left previously (Olof Palme for example)

Mp - Miljöpartiet
Green party. Politically fairly central in Swedish terms but with obvious left leanings socially and prioritise environmental issues with a combo of regulation & investment in green technologies. Pretty similar to UK Greens

C - Centerpartiet
Centre party. Ronseal. Historical background support from rural communities but modernised effectively in recent years partly due to their very visible and vocal leader Annie Lööf who, despite being only 35, has been party leader for 7 years. Not really analogous to any UK party

L - Liberalarna
Liberals. Very much like the Lib Dems in many ways. Formerly called Folkpartiet - people’s party. Traditional party support among teachers and education questions are their specialty

M - Moderaterna
Moderates. Tories pretty much. Classic right wing neo-liberals these days, were earlier much more socially liberal. Friends of big business of course

KD - Krist Demokraterna
Christian Democrats. Formed in the 60s to maintain influence of the Swedish Church when church & state officially separated but no official ties to Swedish church. Their main platform issues are elderly care & childcare but they are veraciously small government, lower taxes, deregulation etc.
They have picked up hugely in this election campaign mainly thanks to the fawning cult around their party leader Ebba Busch Thor;

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Who, among other things, is a total islamophobe

SD - Sverige Demokraterna
Sweden Democrats. Anti-immigration, nationalists, racists. Openly said that muslims aren’t Swedes, that Jews aren’t Swedes - privately that they aren’t even human. UKIP but with political nouse & votes & cash & a LOT of supporters in certain regions

Hope that helps

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Looks like SD has a disappointing result which is (as much as an SD gain can be) good news. More worried about the dead heat, this could get pretty messy.

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Yeah, exit polls are what they are. For me the biggest issue is whether the redgreen bloc or the blue bloc get to govern & it’s nailbiting

Fully expect the SD exit polls to be an underestimate, wont be surprised if they land at 22/23%

Most worried that MP will end up under the 4% threshold and thus blow a hole in the redgreen bloc

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See my reply to @TheBarbieMovie2023

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Depends on the poll - 16ish% is the TV4 poll, they’re at 19% on SVT’s poll. So a bit hard to tell (I daresay that both would be a disappointment for SD)

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Yeah

I’m hating the Moderaterna narrative in this election - constantly saying that Ulf is now the natural choice for PM when they’ve had the biggest loss among their bloc and M are clearly only the 3rd largest party in the country

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Yeah - I don’t know an awful lot about the actual candidates but I don’t think the Moderaterna can claim that they’ve had a better night than Social Democrats.

Either way it’s all looking pretty messy, eh? I saw a graphic suggesting that the swing from S to SD from the 2014 figures is approx 11% which is absolutely mental.

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Yep, but it’s pretty much the same if not worse from M to SD

Really worried for MP now that the results are starting to come in :confused:

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Thank you for taking the time - I understand entirely what you mean by anxiety resulting from this sort of thing (heck, I’ve got an album out this month entirely based around those anxieties). Sweden is often held up as a shining example of socialism working well - higher taxes tolerated in return for well functioning everything. I wonder how (if this is the case) the far right still manage to get such a foot hold?

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Radio Sweden estimating +21% for SD now. Greens are below the 4% threshold

First Election Returns* (As of 21:00) Left Party – 7,6% Social Democrats – 28,1% Green Party – 3,3% Centre Party – 11,1% Liberal Party – 3,8% Christian Democrats – 7,0% Moderate Party – 16,3% Sweden Democrats – 21,3% Other – 1,5%

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My glib response is that all the traditional parties are so firmly anti-racist that, unlike in the UK where racists can vote Tory, they all have to gather together in one party. Plus all the reasons I mentioned above about how populism is fed by neo-liberal economics.
Also, SD is the nominal ’none of the above/anti-establishment’ vote

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Thanks so much @BodyInTheThames for taking the time to lay this stuff out for us, and obviously I am gutted that SD are performing so well (although not at all surprised).

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Really eye opening and heartbreaking, thank you . Fingers crossed and solidarity.

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Greens just about hanging on, disaster if they drop below 4%

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Cheers

& yeah @kiyonemakibi we’ve had 4920 of 6004 counts so far and SD are on 17.7

M are clear 2nd biggest party with 19.7

S have 28.2

The question is the bloc counts, red green are atm just a few seats ahead of Alliance bloc - neither a majority of course

and there don’t look like any feasible permutations where any new coalitions could achieve majority

Good that SD haven’t had a huge surge so spotlight now is on who builds a Govt

And like I said in the OP, this is going to take at least 3/4 weeks to sort out

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Feeling a bit ill now after just watching the SD leader’s speech

Eurgh

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Watching the M leader bareface lie in his speech

’The Alliance is clearly bigger than the government’

They’re absolutely neck & neck on 143 seats each and the Govt have actually 0.3% more votes

He wants to force himself into the Prime Ministership and I do not want a Prime Minister who bareface lies

Fuck you Ulf