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These are Sweden’s most (and least) popular ministers

The latest edition of a yearly poll measuring voter approval of Sweden’s ministers is in, and with less than a year left until the next general election in the country it provides plenty of food for thought.

Published: 2 January 2018 16:03 CET
These are Sweden's most (and least) popular ministers
The Swedish government pictured in summer 2017. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

The Aftonbladet poll asked Swedes to rate their government ministers on a scale from one to five. Five is 'very good', one 'very bad' and three 'approved'. And in the latest edition from the end of 2016, only five government ministers managed to achieve 'approved' rating or better.

Compared to previous editions of the same poll from 2016 and 2015 however, when only two government ministers achieved that rating, it's actually a slight improvement.

And in the current edition twenty ministers saw their rating improve, while none saw it decline, which will give the Social Democrat-Green government some cause for optimism ahead of the autumn 2018 election. Here are the best and worst performers.

Most popular

Sweden's most popular minister according to the poll is Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist, who achieved a 3.5 rating – up from 2.6 last year. That perhaps explains why PM Stefan Löfven was so keen to keep a hold of him in the face of a failed push by the opposition to launch a no-confidence motion earlier this year.

READ ALSO: No-confidence motion against Hultqvist collapses

Hultqvist was then followed by Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, arguably Sweden's most influential minister at the moment while the country holds a temporary place on the UN Security Council. She was rated 3.1 – up slightly from three the year before.

Next came Minister for Upper Secondary School and Adult Education Anna Ekström (rated three, up from 2.7 in 2016), Enterprise Minister Mikael Damberg (rated three, also up from 2.7) and Justice Minister Morgan Johansson (rated three, up from 2.5).

READ ALSO: Who Swedes want as Prime Minister in 2018

Prime Minister Löfven had an improved rating of 2.9 compared to 2016 (2.6), as did several other high-profile cabinet members like Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson, EU Minister Ann Linde and Culture Minister Alice Bah Kuhnke.


Peter Hultqvist and Margot Wallström. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

Least popular

At the other end of the spectrum, there's bad news for struggling junior coalition partner the Green Party, as their joint spokesperson Education Minister Gustav Fridolin was ranked the least popular minister. He did improve marginally though, being rated 2.2 compared to 2.1 last year.

The next least popular was Social Democrat Migration Minister Heléne Fritzon (2.3, with no previous rating as she only took on her position in 2017). Another Green Party politician, Environment Minister Karolina Skog, was the third poorest performer (2.3 compared to two in 2016), while the party's other joint spokesperson Isabella Lövin was fourth (2.4 compared to 2.2 in the past edition). The fifth worst performer was Social Democrat Minister for Employment and Integration Ylva Johansson (2.5, up slightly from 2.4).


Isabella Lövin (left), Ylva Johansson and Gustav Fridolin. Photo: Hossein Salmanzadeh/TT

The survey was carried out by pollsters Inizio for Aftonbladet between November 28th and December 7th, 2017. It took in the opinions of 1,732 people over the age of 16.

IN DETAIL: How Sweden's foreign policy could change after the 2018 election

For members

INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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