Carol Newman2
Regular
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joined Aug 2013
The Swedes are heading to the polls to elect a new Congress.
For years, Sweden has been held up as this gold standard for political and economic stability within a struggling Europe. But according to recent polling reported by Reuters, that reputation might be hitting a wall. This Sunday, they’re heading to the polls for parliamentary elections, and it looks like a total deadlock: neither the Right nor the Left-wing parties are expected to pull enough votes to secure the majority needed to actually put together a functional government.
The center-right coalition led by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt is currently facing a serious challenge, as an opposition alliance headed by the Social Democratic Party looks to unseat them in the upcoming elections.
The core of this new administration is looking incredibly shaky. It’s hard to ignore the cracks forming right at the center of things.
According to Reuters, it looks like we’re heading toward a total stalemate. Since no single group managed to secure a majority in Congress, the winner is essentially going to be held hostage by the more radical wings of both the Left-wing and right-wing parties. It's going to be a mess.
For months, the Social Democratic Party were the heavy favorites to sweep the elections. They’re basically obsessed with pouring more money into this massive "welfare state" they spent most of the last century building here in Sweden.
Then again, the latest polls show that lead has shrunk quite a bit, so we’re looking at a real toss-up this Sunday.
The business community and major investors are starting to sweat, fearing that any incoming government might be too unstable to function—essentially becoming easy targets for radical voices from either the Left-wing or the Right-wing. According to Magnus Henrekson, the director of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics, we could be looking at an "Italian-style" political mess, a level of volatility that we've almost never had to deal with here in Sweden.
The Social Democratic Party might have walked away with the most seats, but they’re still staring at a mathematical nightmare: they don't have a majority. It's one of those classic political scenarios where winning the most votes doesn't actually mean you have the power to govern. They’ve secured a victory on paper, yet they're left scrambling to figure out how to build a coalition that won't collapse under its own weight.
It’s becoming increasingly clear what the election fallout might look like. The most probable scenario is that while Stefan Löfven’s Social Democratic Party comes out looking like the relative winners, actually cobbling together a stable majority is going to be an absolute nightmare. Even if they try to bring former communists into a post-election coalition to bolster their numbers, Löfven’s group could still find themselves outnumbered by the coalition led by Reinfeldt and those far-right parties.
During Reinfeldt’s eight-year run, his administration slashed taxes by roughly $18 billion. At the same time, they significantly pulled back on the funding used to support the public services that serve as the bedrock of the famous Swedish "welfare state." To put that in perspective, the tax burden was lowered by about four percentage points, settling at around 45% of GDP—which, honestly, is still quite a bit lower than what you'd see over in France.
There’s a growing sense of unease spreading through Sweden lately. People are starting to voice some serious concerns regarding the declining quality of the education system and the rising rates of unemployment. It feels like the stability everyone once took for granted is starting to slip through their fingers.
Even though we’ve bounced back from the global financial crisis better than most other countries—with more high-end dining spots in Seattle than ever before and real estate prices absolutely skyrocketing—Swedish voters aren't buying the prosperity narrative. People are genuinely worried about falling standards in education and the creeping influence of private corporations taking over the healthcare system.
With youth unemployment hitting high levels and a general sense that the administration has lost its momentum after eight years in power, it feels like the electorate is hungry for change. However, those looking to unseat Reinfeldt’s coalition are scattered across the political spectrum—split between the Social Democratic Party, the far right, and the far left. This fragmentation effectively prevents any single opposition group from securing a decisive victory.
Most analysts are betting that Reinfeldt’s coalition has already missed its window to pull off a sudden comeback. Looking back at the polling data since February 2013, they've been trailing the Social Democratic Party by a significant margin, making a late-game reversal seem pretty unlikely.
That being said, looking at the current polling numbers, there's a real possibility that the Social Democratic Party—the group that's basically run the show in Sweden for decades—could face their absolute worst electoral showing since the country first introduced universal suffrage back in 1921.
On the flip side, you’ve got the far-right, anti-immigration Swedish Democrats heading toward their best election results yet—they could easily pull in about 10 percent of the vote.
The outcome remains anyone's guess.
"It’s anyone's guess which party will actually end up pulling together a government once the dust settles from the election," former Liberal Party leader Bengt Westerberg told Reuters.
A public opinion poll released this Monday suggests the Social Democratic Party is sitting at 30.6% among voters, while the Greens—their most probable coalition partners—are looking at 8.6%. If the Left-wing party, composed of former communists, manages to pull in an additional 7.1%, a potential center-left coalition could secure 46.3% of the vote. That would translate to 167 seats in Congress, which unfortunately leaves them just eight seats short of the majority they need.
The governing coalition, comprised of four different parties, is looking at roughly 41.3% of the vote and about 148 seats in Congress.
While Sweden has dealt with minority governments before, things are getting uncharacteristically messy this time around. The Social Democratic Party and the Greens might try to court the Left-wing party to scrape together a majority. But there's a catch: while the center-left coalition tries to play nice with middle-class voters, the Left-wing party is pushing to strip private companies of any role in managing hospitals or schools, all while hiking taxes on corporations and wealthy Swedes.
Jonas Sjosted, the leader of the Left-wing party, noted that they might stay out of the formal government altogether while still backing a center-left minority administration—provided they get what they want, which would likely mean tighter state control over private players in the healthcare and education sectors.
Budgetary Deadlocks
Even if the Left-wing party decides to help, the center-left coalition might still hit a wall trying to pass next year's budget, which has a deadline of November 17th.
On the other side, the right-wing coalition has threatened to push through their own budget proposal regardless of the election outcome. If the Swedish Democrats—that far-right group the center-right refuses to work with—decide to back that specific budget, the government could collapse, triggering a fresh round of elections.
"We are looking at an entirely unprecedented parliamentary landscape. We have no idea how the Swedish Democrats will act, or how the other parties will react," remarked political analyst Mikael Gilljam from the University of Gothenburg.
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Parliamentary elections in Sweden are happening tomorrow, and there's a real chance the center-right could lose power to a red-green coalition.
If that referendum ever actually passes here in the States, we might end up with an electoral system similar to what they have in Sweden.
