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First party leader debate reveals Sweden’s new divisions

This year's first party leader debate was held on Wednesday and it clearly showed that Sweden is in a brand new political landscape.

Published: 30 January 2019 15:50 CET
First party leader debate reveals Sweden's new divisions
Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson, no longer in an alliance with the Centre Party's Annie Lööf and Liberals' Jan Björklund. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT
Debate highlights included Ulf Kristersson, leader of the right-wing Moderates, promising the Left Party's Jonas Sjöstedt that they could collapse Prime Minister Stefan Löfven's government together and Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch Thor going after her old Alliance partners Annie Lööf (Centre) and Jan Björklund (Liberals).
 
“It was a little unclear who was the government and who was the opposition,” Kristersson noted dryly after the debate.
 
There were few signs that the centre-right Alliance, which was declared dead after the Liberals and Centre chose to throw their support behind Löfven instead of their right-wing allies, would be revitalized. 
 
Although both Lööf and Björklund have insisted that they will serve as opposition leaders, there was hardly any criticism of Löfven to be heard from either of them on Wednesday.
 
“You shouldn't play poker”
 
The debate had perhaps its most lively moment when Left leader Jonas Sjöstedt pressed Kristersson over his threats to topple the new government over disagreements on the highest marginal tax rate (värnskatt).
 
“Are you serious or are you just bluffing?” Sjöstedt pressed Kristersson. 
 

Left Party leader Jonas Sjöstedt. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT
 
The Moderate leader replied that he would indeed be ready to work with the Left to collapse the newly-created government. 
 
“I'd be happy to topple the government any day, but not over värnskatten. It's good,” Kristersson replied.
 
“You shouldn't play poker holding a pair of twos. There is a risk of being called. You stand there and indicate that you've always liked the tax. You're chickening out,” Sjöstedt said.
 
 
For his part, Löfven didn't seem particularly fazed by the exchange.
 
“Those two need to take responsibility for their own actions in the Swedish parliament. I can't walk around being scared,” he said afterwards.
 
From the other side of the political spectrum, Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson appealed to Kristersson to cooperate with his anti-immigration party. 
 
“The Moderates call themselves liberal-conservative but they don't want to cooperate with conservatives,” Åkesson said to Kristersson.
 
“The problem is that you only like half of our party programme,” Kristersson replied, emphasizing that liberalism is just as important to his party as conservatism.
 

Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT
 
Åkesson chose not to use his right to reply following either Lööf's or Björklund's speeches. Busch Thor of the Christian Democrats, however, opted to pose questions to both. 
 
“I notice that Ebba Busch Thor chose to reply to me, but not to Jimmie Åkesson,” Lööf noted a bit dryly before addressing Busch Thor's question about environmental taxes.
 
Busch Thor also opted to question Björklund after his speech, pushing him to guarantee that Liberals will not attempt to reintroduce property taxes. 
 
“Another path”
 
Social Democrat leader Löfven began the debate by stating that far-right nationalist forces are growing stronger across Europe.
 
“Sweden has chosen another path,” he emphasized.
 
The PM used his remarks to tout the strength of the Swedish economy and his belief that the nation is well-positioned to cope with the societal problems that exist.
 
“The fight for jobs and full employment is always a priority for the Social Democrats,” he said.
 

Social Democrat Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT
 
Kristersson, meanwhile, was less bullish about the future, saying that Sweden has a leftist government that lacks ideas.
 
“We have precisely the same government as before the election, just smaller,” he said.
 
Åkesson used some of his speaking time to take shots at Löfven.
 
“How do we know that you can rely on what S says during an election campaign?” he asked rhetorically, noting that the Social Democrats made significant concessions in areas like labour law and tax reductions as part of the deal crafted with Centre, the Liberals and the Green Party. 
 
The Left's Sjöstedt, who nearly torpedoed the deal that ushered Löfven back into power, attacked the PM for the policy concessions he made as part of what is being called ‘the January agreement'.
 
“We certainly live in new political times, with S promising higher rents, continued privatization of the public sector and tax policies that increase inequality,” he said.

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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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