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An Icon Of Scandinavian Social Democracy Eyes A Historic Slump

Amanda Billner

Rafaela Lindeberg
6 July 2018, 8:47 AM
5 July 2018, 11:00 PM

(Bloomberg) -- The party that has embodied Scandinavian social democracy for decades risks a historic beating.

With just nine weeks of political campaigning left, latest polls estimate the level of support for Sweden’s Social Democrats at about 25 percent. If confirmed in the Sept. 9 general election, it would be the party’s worst result on record.

Like its sister parties across Europe, the group has been wrong-footed by rising opposition to immigration across the continent. Under its leadership, Sweden has seen an influx of about 400,000 immigrants since the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015 -- a massive number for a country of 10 million people. Migration has dominated the campaign, which has seen the nationalist Sweden Democrats shoot up in the polls. The government has since tacked toward a more restrictive migration policy, but voters remain unconvinced.

“The agenda in Sweden has been very much about migration, and crime and punishment," said one of the party’s leading figures, Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson. "These are issues where we don’t enjoy as high a level confidence from voters as on other issues,” she said during the country’s annual political festival in Almedalen, on the island of Gotland in the Baltic.

The Social Democrats were the dominant force in Sweden for almost seven decades and at one point enjoyed as much as 54 percent of the national vote. But that support has been shrinking since the start of the millennium, and had dropped to around 31 percent by the time the last election was held.

It's almost like Sweden is a democracy!

Shit happens, votes change accordingly.

Question is will it translate into change of policy.

My guess (and Wulfie would be the resident expert here) is that even if the Sweden Democrats poll first in the election, it will not matter unless they capture an absolute majority. None of the other parties would likely agree to forming a coalition government with them, meaning that the party (SD) that might capture the most votes will be left out of governing.

That of course could backfire because many the voters might not take that well.

I'm sure they will never gain that but the bigger they are the harder excluding them will be. Eventually someone will crack.

I suppose you could run into a scenario similar to what happened in the Netherlands last year where the Eurosceptic party (PVV led by Geery Wilders) had the second highest number of votes, taking the 2nd largest number of seats in the parliament. No party won an absolute majority so a coalition government was necessary. The leaders of D66, CDA, PvdA, VVD, SP, GroenLinks, and CU parties stated that they would not enter a coalition with the PVV and it eventually took a record 225 days after the election for them to form a government.

The Social Democrats were the dominant force in Sweden for almost seven decades and at one point enjoyed as much as 54 percent of the national vote. But that support has been shrinking since the start of the millennium, and had dropped to around 31 percent by the time the last election was held.