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Silence is golden for Social Democrats’ Löfven

Stefan Löfven appears to have found a recipe for success as the head of Sweden's Social Democrats: keeping his mouth shut. The question remains, however, as to just how long the strategy can be a winning one, argues historian and commentator David Linden.

Published: 16 April 2012 09:40 CEST
Silence is golden for Social Democrats' Löfven

By all accounts Stefan Löfven has been a successful leader of the Swedish Social Democrats.

When he took over, the party was deeply divided and it had lost two elections in a row. The last leader, Håkan Juholt, did not even serve a full term.

When Juholt had most of his problems, he boasted to the press that he had received a text message from “an English colleague”.

It was a message of support: “Håkan my friend, remember that heat tempers steel. And you will be the next prime minister of Sweden” (Fokus, January 20th, 2012).

But Ed Miliband was wrong and Juholt never got to be prime minister of Sweden as he was forced to resign in January amid continued questions about his leadership.

So, what about Stefan Löfven?

As former chairman of the IF Metall union, he surely knows how to temper steel.

A string of recent polls show more than one third of voters support the Social Democrats, with results indicating the current centre-left opposition would have a majority in parliament.

So today, Löfven would be prime minister. But will he be able to convince the Swedish electorate in the next general election in 2014?

That question can only be answered on Election Day, of course.

What can be said, however, is that the party has “managed to talk politics and not about other things”, according to Social Democrat party secretary Carin Jämtin (Expressen, April 6th, 2012).

And Stefan Löfven’s personal popularity is similar to the ratings previous Social Democrat prime minister Göran Persson received at the height of his popularity.

It seems, therefore, like Stefan Löfven is invincible and that a change of Swedish government is inevitable.

Furthermore, an election today would mean that the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats, both members of the current centre-right Alliance coalition, would lose their representation in parliament.

So what is Löfven’s recipe for political success?

The answer is that he has not got a recipe and that it is far from sure that he will succeed.

He has only retreated back to the Social Democrat comfort zone when it comes to ideas. When Löfven was appointed interim leader, he succeeded two individuals that had attempted to change the party.

Mona Sahlin wanted to move the party to the right and Håkan Juholt wanted to move it to the left. But Stefan Löfven wants to remain in the middle.

The focus was on employment and if anything was said in public, it was something everyone agreed with such as “it is wrong to cut down on university places”.

Niklas Nordström, former chair of the party’s youth organization SSU has compared the Social Democrats to the Republican Party in the United States.

Sweden is a nation left of the centre and the US is right of the centre. For a long time a party that was centre-right dominated US politics and a party that was centre-left dominated Swedish politics.

But when Clinton launched the New Democrats and the Moderates launched the Alliance for Sweden, the GOP and Social Democrat establishment both failed to change. Instead, each continued along outdated paths and, for some time, it generated support in the polls.

Stefan Löfven is a successful tactician.

He is silent and he allows the government to make its own mistakes.

In many ways, he is a Swedish James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher’s predecessor, who was seen as very successful until he was destroyed by a series of industrial strikes started by the radical Left in the Labour Party.

When he is forced to speak, Löfven might face a similar fate.

The Social Democratic left forced Mona Sahlin into an electoral cooperation with the former Communist Party, the Left Party.

The party’s left wing then thought Håkan Juholt was “their candidate”.

Löfven, who has so far been successful by being silent, will have to either please or disappoint the left wing of the party.

If he pleases them he will lose support among the voters and if he disappoints them, he will lose control of the party.

With his current stellar poll ratings, however, he can only disappoint when he finally starts to speak.

David Linden is a PhD student in history at King’s College London and a former resident of Malmö. Follow him on Twitter at @davidlinden1.

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POLITICS

Social Democrat leader backs Sweden’s harsh new immigration policies

The leader of Sweden's Social Democrat opposition has backed the harsh new policies on crime and immigration included in the new government's programme, and even signalled openness to the much-criticised begging ban.

Published: 26 October 2022 17:05 CEST
Social Democrat leader backs Sweden's harsh new immigration policies

In an interview with the Expressen newspaper, Magdalena Andersson said her party was absolutely agreed on the need for a stricter immigration policy for Sweden, going so far as to take credit for the Social Democrats for the illiberal shift. 

“There is absolutely no question that need a strict set of migration laws,” she told the Expressen newspaper, rejecting the claims of Sweden Democrat Jimmie Åkesson that the government’s new program represented a “paradigm shift in migration policy”. 

“The paradigm shift happened in 2015, and it was us who carried it out,” she said. “The big rearrangement of migration policy was carried out by us Social Democrats after the refugee crisis of 2015, with a thoroughgoing tightening up of the policy.” 

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She said that her party would wait and see what “concrete proposals” the new government ended up making, but she said the Social Democrats were not in principle against even the new government’s most criticised proposal: to slash the number of UN quota refugees from around 5,000 to 900. 

“That’s something we are going to look at,” she said. “It’s been at different levels at different points of time in Sweden.” 

Rather than criticise the new government for being too extreme on migration, Andersson even attacked it for not being willing to go far enough. 

The Social Democrats’ plan to tighten up labour market migration by bringing back the system of labour market testing, she said, was stricter than the plan to increase the salary threshold proposed by Ulf Kristersson’s new government.  

When it comes to the new government’s plans to bring in much tougher punishments for a string of crimes, Andersson criticised the new government for not moving fast enough. 

“What I think is important here is that there are a completed proposals for new laws already on the table which need to be put into effect,” she said. 

She also said she was not opposed to plans for a national ban on begging. 

“We Social Democrats believe that people should have the possibility to get educated, and work so they can support themselves,” she said. “That’s something we’ve believed in all along. You shouldn’t need to stand there holding your cap in your hand.” 

“It’s already possible to bring in a ban in certain municipalities today,” she continued. “So the question is really whether this should be regulated at a national or a local level. We did not decide at out national congress that it should be regulated at a national level, but when the inquiry publishes its conclusions, we will assess the advantages and disadvantages and decide on whether we will keep our position or change.” 

Where she was critical of the new government was in its failure to discuss how it would increase the budgets for municipalities and regional governments, who she said face being forced to drive through savage cuts in real spending to schools, healthcare and elderly care if they were not prioritised in the coming budget. 

“But that’s such a tiny part of this slottsavtal (“Mansion agreement”), and the government’s policy programme suggests they’ve missed something that should really be in focus for the government,” she said, warning that citizens should be braced for dramatic fall in the quality of welfare in the coming years. 

She said her party would also campaign against the new government’s plans to scrap Sweden’s goal of spending one percent of GDP on aid, and also against the new government’s plans to make it harder to build wind energy projects. 

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