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STEFAN LÖFVEN: ONE YEAR ON

POLITICS

‘We had to make the party look fit to govern’

One year into the job, Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven appears to have kept the party's poll numbers from dropping, but is now facing demands to make the party a dominant force in Swedish politics.

Published: 25 January 2013 12:30 CET
'We had to make the party look fit to govern'

When Löfven took over as leader on January 27th last year from Håkan Juholt, there was chaos and despair within the party.

Sweden’s main opposition party had long held more than 40 percent of Swedish voters’ support, but during Juholt’s tenure, voter support tumbled to record lows – only about one in four Swedes said they supported the party.

In the melee, internal divisions between leftist and centrists factions of the party were laid bare to the public.

One year on, many of the party’s MPs say there is a renewed sense of optimism within the party.

“One thing we had to do was to make sure the party looked fit to govern, without which we wouldn’t have people voting for us,” Löfven told the TT news agency.

Löfven, the former head of the powerful IF Metall metal workers union, has not brought with him any radical changes to the party platform.

He has, however, focused on employment, education and business. Questions regarding social security, sick leave, and redistribution policies have not been discussed in much detail.

“Already in my first speech I said that jobs would be my focus,” he said.

A few new proposals have been made public, such as an education contract for teenagers and young adults who have not finished high school.

His party has also home in on the debate on education and innovation.

When the party presented its shadow budget last year, Löfven dubbed it “a business plan” for Sweden, which drew some left-wing criticism for having adapted to middle-class rhetoric.

Löfven retorted that the party had always attempted to speak to as many voter groups as possible in order to find common ground in tackling societal issues.

Once Löfven took over from Juholt, whose brief leadership was overshadowed by concerns that he was incorrectly receiving second-home compensation for not only himself but his partner, opinions poll started to show renewed trust in the party.

Yet the upswing hit a plateau and now hovers around the 33 to 34-percent mark.

To put the figure in perspective, it is only a few percentage points higher than the result achieved by the party in what the Social Democrats call the “catastrophic” 2010 elections.

With Löfven at its helm, the party now hopes a political offensive during his second year will bump up poll numbers and help the party return to power in the 2014 elections.

Political scientist Ulf Bjereled, however, said there is a risk that the Social Democrats will get used to their historically low voter confidence and become “a party like any other,” despite ruling Sweden for a huge swathe of the post-World War II era.

“They need to have more concrete reform proposal to show there is a distinct option to the current government,” Bjereld told TT.

Bjereled added that the main challenge is to find a way to attract the support of young urban voters who work in creative industries, while at the same time keeping the traditional values of the workers party, which despite loosening its ties with the union movement still sympathizes with many of its goals.

TT/The Local/at

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POLITICS

‘Very little debate’ on consequences of Sweden’s crime and migration clampdown

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast. 

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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