I never thought I would be interested in Swedish politics - until last night. Here's what I've learned...
There are 8 parties currently in the Riksdag (Swedish Parliament), 7 of them form 2 different coalitions - The Alliance and The Red-Greens. It was between these two that the leadership was decided. The 8th party is called the Swedish Democrats, they got elected into the Riksdag last night for the first time. The Alliance beat The Red-Greens by quite a large margin, but they failed to gain the majority (50% or more) of the Riksdag.
All this basically means is that The Alliance has more power than The Red-Greens overall, but not enough to make a huge difference, which is where the Swedish Democrats come in.
The Swedish Democrats are, in the opinion of most Swedes, a racist party. In the UK, the equivalent of the Swedish Democrats is the BNP. The goal of the Swedish Democrats, according to them, is to have a responsible immigration policy but that is just an easy way of saying "No Immigrants, No Non-Whites, No Non-Swedish."
As an immigrant myself I find it disheartening to know that 5.7% (330,157) of the Swedish voting population feel this way. I wasn't an immigrant in the UK though and I found the BNP to be a disgusting excuse for human life, so I mostly have the same views now as I did before I left, thus, I'm not TOO biased.
SD = Swedish Democrats.
So what effect can the SD have on the Riksdag?
Well, since there isn't a majority goverment at the moment, the SD are what some call the decision makers. For example, if there's a movement where the The Red-Greens and The Alliance can't come to an agreement, the SD will have to make a decision on who to agree with. I'm not sure what other consequences there are to the SD being in Goverment, but I'm guessing it's not good. I know they'll be able to have much larger platform on which to speak and air their racist views though and that's not a good thing.
They've already amassed a wealth of support and it's only going to get worse if The Alliance and The Red Greens don't start working together to stop these racist people.
As you can see, the SD are the talk of the nation right now. I think people are just in disbelief that they got voted in, we all saw it coming but when it actually happened I think we all realised that it was the end of an era.
Internationally, Sweden has been a very quiet, neutral country, at least that's what I've come to believe. Now though, things may have to change. Last night may have set the stage for what might be a daunting future for Sweden.
I compare everything I come across to my experiences of living in England for 20 years by default, so I'm seeing alot of similarities between Swedish and English politics. Election night over here was fairly standard to what I'm used to, lots of numbers, statistics and parties. Nothing blew me away, but somehow I was quite intrigued about the whole thing, how one country can have so many different views of how things should be, some good, some very good, some bad and some very bad.
One thing that should be noted is how much I knew about Swedish politics before I watched it. Lisa informed me of the two major parties, just the basics, and she wasn't shy in telling me who she preferred. This most certainly affected how I was thinking during the election, which in hindsight, was not a good thing. I wouldn't say she pushed her views on me, but when describing who she liked, she made a point to say how great that party was and when talking about the other party, it felt to me like she had nothing but disdain for them. It may have been inadvertant on her part but I felt misled by the whole thing and brought it up with her today. After a good talk we both agreed that she should have found me some unbiased reading material and then I would have been able to decide for myself who I preferred.
I'm not sure where my views stand on the Government as a whole, obviously I'm either Alliance or Red-Green, they're what makes Sweden what it is today, a fine country with very few flaws. I can't vote obviously, but I can have my views and I can either keep them to myself or tell people. I just don't know what they are yet. More research is definitely in order.
I'll keep you updated.
'Till next time....
