For those of you unfamiliar with the Swedish political system, here is a quick crash course.
Sweden is governed by a democratically elected government, led by a Prime Minister. Legislation is proposed by the government and decided by a multi-party parliament. The system of election to parliament is one of proportional representation. This means that there are several smaller parties, and sometimes they end up holding the balance of power. To hold one of the parliament’s 349 seats, parties must have a minimum of 4% of the vote. This barrier was put in place to prevent very small parties getting in.
Every four years, in September, a General Election is held in Sweden. At the same time, elections for the 290 local council authorities, and 20 county authorities are held. Sweden had a 87.18% voter turn-out in the last election in 2018, which shows a strong democratic interest from the electorate.
There are currently 8 parties in the Swedish Parliament. In the last election, the Social Democrats (left of center) gained the largest percentage of the vote – 28.26%. The next largest party was the Moderate (Conservative) party with 19.84%. Since proportional representation is the method, no single party receives their own mandate in Swedish politics. This means a process of discussion, negotiating and wheeling-dealing with smaller parties is required to gain majority, come over 50% and to gain a position of government.
Sweden’s current government took a very long time to finalise. After each general election, the Speaker of the House announces the preliminary Prime Minister, initially the leader of the party with the most votes. This person then has the task of forming a government and getting it passed through parliament. After the last election, the government was finally approved after an enormous 129 days of negotiation. It is a minority government led by the Social Democrats and containing the Greens (4.41%). It is supported by 3 opposition parties – the Left Party (8%), the Center Party (8.61%) and the Liberals (5.49%). This is a very unusual coalition which has shuffled around the political map and brought together parties with many opposing views. Some people think of it as an unholy and unsustainable grouping. However, despite their different political ideologies, this middle-ground alliance are united in one ambition – keeping the right-wing nationalistic party Sweden Democrats (17.53%) out of government.
It remains to be seen how long this alliance will hold, and indeed what will happen in the next election in 2 years time. It seems that Sweden might be caught in the jaws of political populism. In a recent opinion poll, the nationalists Sweden Democrats came out as number 1.
So is Sweden in a conservative renaissance – will the next coalition government be conservative-right wing?
Time will tell.
Watching the Swedes 