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The election is over here in the frozen north, and for the first time in Swedish history a Liberal-Conservative goverment has been re-elected.
However, they do not have a majority in the parliament, which has led to a very unstable political situation in Sweden.

On one side, we have the Red-Green coalition, consisting of the Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Environment Party. They lost the elections with just 157 seats.

On the other side. we have the Alliance consisting of the New Moderates, the Christian Democrats, the Central Party and the Liberal Peoples Party. They won with 172 seats.

There is a problem, however.

In the middle between these two alliances are the Sweden Democrats, a racist party which gained 20 seats in the elections. Because the Alliance doesn't have a majority
of the seats, The Sweden Democrats will have significant influence in the Swedish goverment.

So there it is. A historical election in many ways. The Social Democrats have had their worst election ever, for the first time ever a Liberal Conservative goverment has been re-elected,
And for the first time ever we have a racist party in the Swedish goverment.

Just to simplify:



Blue is the Alliance, red is the Red-Greens, grey are the Sweden Democrats.


Thoughts?

I guess Europe is taking a right turn

I think people are registering their distrust in the major parties which is why a lot of the smaller and/or extremer parties are getting in to so many places.

How will this election change how things are run in Sweden? More hung votes? Slower law passing? Etc?

We haven't really seen much from our government doing anything since they joined forces to get rid of labour so I hope you don't suffer from something similar.

Seeing the UK and Australian results before this, and looking at the anti-incumbent move in the US there seems to be a trend away from major parties. These votes are shifting towards all kinds of parties, in the UK towards the centre left Liberal Democrats, in Australia towards the far left Greens, in the US towards the far right but not racist Tea Party*, and now in Sweden to the racist Swedish Democrats.

It seems there's a general dissatisfaction out there in general, but no-one really knows what the answer is.





*Which isn't actually a different party as much as a re-branding of the Republicans, but the point is still the same.

Sebster in Oz the Greens have been stealing votes from the Labor party so the far left nutjobs are voting Green instead of union affiliated Labor.
The Greens scored almost exactly the same vote as the democrats in the senate back before the democrats imploded post GST.
If the growth of the greens continues then labour is going to find itself in more and more trouble as the years progress as they are becoming increasing reliant on preferences to get their members elected in the lower house.

The problem with Oz is that Labor and the Libs have both moved to a wishy washy middle ground and they end up looking very similar.

There's a startling lack of Swedish Bikini team in this thread. Frazzled sad. :(

sebster wrote:These votes are shifting towards all kinds of parties, in the UK towards the centre left Liberal Democrats

Actually the Lib Dems lost seats in the last election, although they DID enjoy a (very) modest increase in vote share.

Frazzled wrote:There's a startling lack of Swedish Bikini team in this thread. Frazzled sad. :(

Frazzled happy now

Sorry, my bad

Thats better.

SilverMK2 wrote:I think people are registering their distrust in the major parties which is why a lot of the smaller and/or extremer parties are getting in to so many places.

How will this election change how things are run in Sweden? More hung votes? Slower law passing? Etc?

We haven't really seen much from our government doing anything since they joined forces to get rid of labour so I hope you don't suffer from something similar.

I think it's the global economy problem that has caused people to vote for extreme right parties. People believe that the big parties haven't been able to handle
the situation which has caused unrest amongst parts of the population. These unsatisfied people (mostly unemployed young men) seek to blame others, in this case immigrants.

To answer your question more directly, yes, this will lead to slower law passing. However, both the red-greens and the Alliance have stated that they will never seek to cooperate with
a party based on racism. According to experts, this political situation has three potential outcomes.

1. The Red-Greens and the Alliance create a political deadlock in which the Sweden Democrats can choose which coalition to side with during each vote in the parliament.

2. Sweden becomes Denmark number 2 and the Alliance, despite what they've said, sides with the Sweden Democrats to gain a political advantage.

3. This seems like the most reasonable outcome. The Environmental Party quits the Red-Green coalition and sides with the Alliance. This will seriously limit the political infuence
of the Sweden Democrats. According to swedish newspapers, the leaders of the Moderate Party have already started negotiating with the Environmental Party.

Did some of the Pirate Bay/similar guys run or stand in this election or am I confusing it with soemwhere else ?

reds8n wrote:Did some of the Pirate Bay/similar guys run or stand in this election or am I confusing it with soemwhere else ?

I think you're talking about the Pirate Party, and they only got 0.7% of the votes. In Sweden we have a 4% parliament party limit.
Although they did get a lot of votes for the EU elections.