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KING CARL XVI GUSTAF

King should surrender throne to Victoria: poll

As more reports of womanising and shady connections continue to emerge, most Swedes think King Carl XVI Gustaf should relinquish the throne to Crown Princess Victoria in the next decade, a poll showed Saturday.

King should surrender throne to Victoria: poll

A full 59 percent of Swedes want the king to step down within the next 10 years, while only 29 percent think he should reign until his death, according to a Demoskop poll published in the Expressen daily.

The Internet poll conducted Friday of 620 people also showed that while 73 percent of those questioned said they had much or very much confidence in Victoria, only 39 percent said the same thing about her father.

Thirty-two percent of people polled said they had little or very little confidence in the king, compared to just nine percent for the crown princess.

The king reached the official retirement age of 65 last month but has said he has no plans to abdicate in favour of his 33-year-old daughter.

The latest poll confirms opinions seen in other recent surveys and comes just days after commercial broadcaster TV4 claimed it had viewed pictures of the king in a strip club in the same shot as two women having sex.

TV4’s report came as a new book said friends of the king had been willing to pay large sums of money to block the publication of pictures of him in compromising situations.

At least one of his friends reportedly contacted an alleged mafia boss to ask for help to negotiate with the strip club owner and stop him from making the pictures public.

The royal court in Stockholm told AFP Saturday it has demanded that TV4 show the pictures detailed in its report.

“TV4 must show what it is they are talking about. Where’s the substance? For now, as far as I can tell, there is no substance to this,” court information chief Bertil Ternert said, adding that the report had put him in the “impossible situation … of being asked to react to something we have not seen.”

“There needs to be some form of justice here. You cannot just attack the royal court and the king without disclosing what the substance is,” he insisted.

The latest reports come just over six months after a tell-all biography of the king hit the bookstands, causing uproar with its descriptions of his participation in wild parties and affairs with young women.

The claims have also surfaced less than a week after the court announced that Carl XVI Gustaf’s wife, German-born Queen Silvia, had launched an investigation into the nature of controversial ties between her father and the Nazi regime.

That probe comes on the heels of another investigative report by TV4 that Silvia’s father, whom she had previously insisted was not politically active although he was a member of the Nazi party, had taken over a German factory belonging to a Jew in 1939 as part of an “Aryanisation” programme.

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What is Sweden doing to celebrate the King’s 50th year on the throne?

Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf marks his 50-year jubilee next year, while the nation will mark the 500th anniversary of the year Gustav Vasa ascended to the throne after liberating Sweden from Danish rule. So, how is Sweden celebrating?

What is Sweden doing to celebrate the King's 50th year on the throne?

Carl XVI Gustaf was only 27 when he became king following the death of his grandfather, Gustaf VI Adolf in 1973, and he had been Crown Prince since his father, Prince Gustaf Adolf, died in a plane crash when he was just four years old. 

In 2018, he became Sweden’s longest reigning monarch ever, and he’s currently showing few signs of slowing down. 

Here are the main events planned for 2023 to celebrate his rule. 

January 27th: the Sweden Dinner

Jubilee celebrations will begin shortly after the New Year’s celebration, with a Sverigemiddag, or “Sweden Dinner”, planned in Stockholm at the Kungliga slottet, or Royal Palace, for January 27.

Leaders from each of Sweden’s 21 counties are invited, and those leaders will also select significant people from their counties to “set the tone” (tongivande människor) for the event.

February-September: Tour of Swedish counties

Throughout the year, the King and Queen will travel to all of Sweden’s counties, riding in a horse-drawn carriage wherever possible. These visits will take place between February and September.

June 6th: National Day celebrations

As mentioned above, on June 6, the royal couple will be in Strängnäs to mark the anniversary of the founding of modern Sweden under Gustav Vasa.

After visiting Strängnäs, the King will give a National Day speech at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, which has its own statue of Gustav Vasa, and which will itself be celebrating its 150-year anniversary next year. A National Day reception will also be held at the museum.

September 15th and September 16th: Main jubilee celebrations

September 15, 2023, officially marks 50 years from the day when Carl XVI Gustaf became Sweden’s king. 

A Jubilee dinner with international heads of state and royals will be held that evening in the Rikssalen at the Royal Palace.

The next day, on September 16th, the King and Queen will travel through Stockholm in a Jubilee Cortege. This will be followed by a Jubilee Concert, which will be open to the public and may also be broadcast live on TV and radio.

While not all these events will be open to the public, there are plenty of opportunities for regular civilians to get caught up in Jubilee celebrations. In March, an exhibition titled “Vasa to Bernadotte – Culture in the service of the kingdom 1523 – 1973 – 2023”, tracking the history of the Swedish monarchy, will open at the Royal Palace. And in June, an outdoor photography retrospective on Carl XVI Gustaf’s time as King will open at Slottsbacken, by the Royal Palace. 

Gustaf Vasa led a rebellion against the Danish King Kristian II, led Sweden’s reformation, and established Sweden as a unitary kingdom. Photo: National Museum of Sweden

So what’s planned to celebrate the the Vasa anniversary? 

Next year isn’t all about contemporary royalty, there’s also a historical king to celebrate. 

Gustav Vasa, or Gustav 1st, is seen by many Swedes as the country’s greatest ever ruler. During his rule, Vasa did away with the tradition of elected monarchs, replacing the system with a hereditary monarchy, then ruled by the House of Vasa.

The day he was elected king, June 6th, 1523, is now celebrated as Sweden’s national day.

So on June 6th, a full day of festivities is planned in Strängnäs, the city where Vasa’s election was held, with King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia presiding over the day’s events.

The Royal Castles will mark Gustav Vasa’s election with a variety of events, including lectures, concerts, and park walks planned throughout the year at Vasaborgen Gripsholm, or Gripsholm Castle, in Mariefred. The castle itself is an important historical site, dating back to the era of Sweden’s Vasa rulers

You can apply for tickets here from March for the events at Gripsholm Castle. 

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