SHARE
COPY LINK

ALMEDALEN 2022

Liberal leader: ‘I don’t like the extremes of either left or right’

The affable new leader of Sweden's Liberal Party claimed in his speech at the Almedalen festival that his party would act "an anchor in the middle" that would protect aid spending, asylum rights, gender equality, LGBT issues, and public service broadcasting in a coming right-wing government.

Liberal leader: 'I don't like the extremes of either left or right'
Liberal party leader Johan Pehrson collects flowers after giving his speech. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

In just three months as party leader Johan Pehrson has taken poll support for his party from 2.5 percent of the vote to well over the parliament’s four percent threshold, which, if the Green Party fails to get over the spar, might be enough to win the right-wing parties September’s election. 

“I’m a social liberal, an Örebro man, a lawyer, a businessman, a dad, and a bonus-dad (stepdad),” Pehrson said. “I don’t like the extremes, either on the right or on the left.” 

While he spoke about gang crime and segregation just as the Moderates’ leader Ulf Kristersson, and the Christian Democrats’ Ebba Busch had done, and proposed longer sentences for repeat offenders, in general his picture of what needed to be done came from a much more leftwing position. 

He said that criminals needed to be treated with both “steel fist and Lovikka [woolen] mittens”, both “forcefully and with warmth”. 

“All the youth who are at risk of going on a criminal path should be put in the classroom. Away from the grip of the gangs and into the magnetic power of learning”. 

“The best teachers should be attracted to work in the most socially vulnerable areas,” he added. “Make sure social workers are there at the police station. It’s not rocket science to know that cooperation needs to be really good when the problems are this big.” 

Just like Ebba Busch, Pehrson suffered problems with his teleprompter, but while she handled it quite coolly, Pehrson took a more maverick approach, sipping nervously from his water bottle, and mumbling a few disconnected sentences, and then bellowing at the top of his voice, “We will win the battle against social exclusion together! Or not at all! Let’s take the fight!”

He also made jokes, greeting applause at one point with the words “more applause, applause for me, please,” than 

The morning after Pehrson’s speech, Svenska Dagbladet reported that the Moderate Party had decided that the Liberals would not be part of their government, citing a source from the Sweden Democrats.

The Expressen newspaper than published a private message to Tobias Billström, the Moderates’ group party leader, from Gunnar Strömmer, the party secretary, saying he was going to have words with SD “that they shouldn’t bloody well go and put words in our party leader’s mouth”. 

Pehrson on the other hand is clear that he wants to both be in the Moderates’ next government, and also for his party to have the education ministry. 

“This new government needs a new liberal education minister,” he said. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

SWEDEN ELECTS

Sweden Elects: New finance minister under fire after first long interview

In our weekly Sweden Elects newsletter, The Local's editor Emma Löfgren explains the key events to keep an eye on in Swedish politics this week.

Sweden Elects: New finance minister under fire after first long interview

Hej,

Elisabeth Svantesson has given her first long interview as finance minister, speaking to the Svenska Dagbladet daily just days after she presented her first budget on behalf of Sweden’s new, right-wing government.

The government has already faced accusations of deprioritising the climate crisis, and Svantesson conceded in the interview that its planned investment in nuclear power (which is a low-emission source of energy, but takes time to develop, so it pays off only in the long run) would also make it difficult to reach Sweden’s climate targets within the next decade.

Asked what will happen if Sweden does not meet its Agenda 2030 target, the sustainable development targets agreed by the United Nations, by that year, she said: “It would mean that we don’t meet the targets. If we don’t we don’t, but our ambition is to steer towards that goal.”

That quote, which was perceived as far more laissez-faire than the situation warrants, was met with criticism from the opposition.

“I’m astounded at how you sign agreements and vote for legislation in parliament only to ignore it when you feel like it,” said Green Party leader Per Bolund.

The Social Democrats’ former finance minister Mikael Damberg gave a diplomatic-or-patronising answer (a school of conflict avoidance that can be perfected only by a party that’s more used to being in power than not being in power) and guessed that Svantesson had perhaps not meant it like that. “Svantesson has had a lot to do this week, maybe she’s tired.”

Speaking of interviews, one Swedish newsroom has not yet been getting them, at least not with senior ministers. One of public broadcaster SVT’s top political interviewers, Anders Holmberg, points out that all four right-wing party leaders and several ministers have declined to appear on his “30 minuter”, a show famous for putting hard-hitting questions to politicians and senior decision-makers. It’s of course not mandatory to say yes to all interviews even as a politician, but it’s an unusual move.

It’s interesting that Bolund tried to attack Svantesson specifically on not following through on commitments. This has been a recurring piece of criticism since the new government was elected two months ago.

The budget was more conservative (in this particular case I mean conservative as in cautious rather than as in right-wing) than you might have expected based on the government’s election pledges, and it’s not the only campaign promise that they’ve been forced to backtrack on.

“The central thing is that they’re breaking most of their major election promises at the same time as as they’re not really managing to take care of the big social problems Sweden faces today,” Damberg told SVT.

To be fair, you would kind of expect him to say this (when has a political opposition party ever praised the government’s budget?), but significantly, the criticism hasn’t only come from the left-wing opposition.

Moderate Party politicians in the powerful Skåne region earlier this month slammed their party for failing to deliver the promised support to those suffering sky high power bills in the southern Swedish county.

“There are effectively no reforms, and they’re not putting in place the policies they campaigned for in the election,” the head of the liberal think tank Timbro told the Aftonbladet newspaper about the budget.

It will be interesting to see whether the label as “promise breakers” sticks, and whether that will affect the right-wing parties in the next election.

Did you know?

Parties make more and more pledges during election campaigns. Ahead of the 2014 election, a whopping 1,848 vallöften (election promises) were made, according to research by Gothenburg University, up from 326 in 1994.

You may not believe this, because the stereotypical image of the dishonest politician perhaps unfairly endures, but research shows that most politicians keep most of their election promises most of the time.

Swedish parties in a single-party government and coalition governments with a joint manifesto tend to deliver on between 80 and 90 percent of their vallöften, according to political scientist Elin Naurin. For coalition governments without a joint manifesto, it ranges from 50 to 70 percent.

In other news

the deputy mayor of the town of Norrtälje, who got 15 seconds – technically 26 seconds – of fame after he was left speechless when a reporter asked him to defend hefty pay rises for top councillors has resigned, saying he wants to take responsibility for what happened.

He also told SVT about his long and very awkward silence on camera that his brain had simply blacked out after having worked for 13 hours straight and gone nine hours without food in the post-election frenzy.

Sweden Elects is a weekly column by Editor Emma Löfgren looking at the big talking points and issues after the Swedish election. Members of The Local Sweden can sign up to receive the column as a newsletter in their email inbox each week. Just click on this “newsletters” option or visit the menu bar.

SHOW COMMENTS