Politics: Sweden: Serious challenge to socialists from Swedish Moderates and their center-r+t coalition
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2nd Update (Sep27,2k6): Mats Engström reports in "We still love the Swedish model" (Sep19,2k6) OpenDemocracy. 1st Update: Jonas Bergman reports in Bloomberg news: "Swedish Opposition Elected on Tax, Job Pledges, Exit Polls Show" (Sep17,2k6).
Sweden's four-party opposition ousted Prime Minister Goeran Persson's Social Democrats after 12 years in power as voters backed their plans to cut taxes to make it easier for companies to hire and sell off state assets, exit polls indicated.BackgrounderIt looks like a close one lays ahead in Sweden, where the Social Democratic Party (SDP) led by Prime Minister Goran Persson wants to continue the country's life-long welfarism despite the challenge of securing a competitive position in the globalization process. The SDP has been in almost constant power over the past seven decades (only two times a loser in general elections for Parliament).
The opposition, led by the Moderate Party's Fredrik Reinfeldt, 41, took 49.7 percent of the vote, compared with 45.6 percent for the social Democrats and their allies, the Greens and the Left Party, an exit poll for state broadcaster SVT showed. A poll from commercial broadcaster TV4 showed the opposition ahead by 48.6 percent to 46.7 percent.
The opposition laid the groundwork for victory two years ago when it formed the Alliance for Sweden, with common policies on taxes, the economy and welfare, last month issuing its first joint election manifesto. It also managed to convince voters it had the best recipe to end a decade of stagnation in the Swedish labor market.
``The four opposition parties allied into a formidable alternative,'' said Anders Sannerstedt, a political-science professor at Lund University. ``They have never been this united and in tune with each other -- I have to call it historic.''
The largest opposition party, the Moderates, took 26.6 percent, according to the SVT exit poll, while the Liberals got 7.3 percent, the Center Party 8.2 percent and the Christian Democrats 7.6 percent. The exit poll gave the Social Democrats 34.3 percent of the vote, the Left 5.8 percent and the Greens 5.5 percent.
Now the socialists are facing an effective challenge of their own, with a center-r+t coalition contesting the field and at the moment leading by a slim majority in opinion polls of voters. The conservative coalition is led by the Moderate Party.
Reporting from Stockholm, BBC's Lars Bevanger, "Sweden faces cliffhanger election" (Sep16,2k6) tells us:
[The Moderate Party's leader] Fredrik Reinfeldt says reform is overdue. The opposition says changes to Sweden's rigid labour market and high-cost welfare system are long overdue, and promises to cut both employer taxes and unemployment benefits.Europe > Sweden
It also wants to cut the large social sector, which currently employs 30% of the Swedish job force.
... Fredrik Reinfeldt... has accused the government of disregarding the high unemployment rate, and for not making sure this country can continue to compete in a global market.Regarding the Social Democrats' leading position among the parties for over a century, it's important to note the most recent interim when they were temporarily displaced. "The Social Democrats were narrowly defeated in September 1991, and the government of Ingvar Carlsson gave way to that of Carl Bildt (Moderate Party), who headed a minority four-party, center-right coalition composed of the Moderates, the Liberals, the Center Party, and the Christian Democratic party, which together controlled 170 seats" [in the 349-seat Riksdag (Parliament)]. Sweden's political-party system does include a small Christian Democratic Party which won parliamentary representaiton for the first time in 1991.
The government maintains the unemployment rate is a low 6%, while the opposition says it is around 10%, taking into account the many people on sick leave and in job training schemes.
The Prime Minister, Goran Persson, has accused the opposition of wanting to destroy job security and make dangerous cuts to the welfare state.
He said this would undermine Sweden's unique social model - a cradle to grave welfare system and strong economic growth.
In the Riksdag, Sweden's Parliament, seven political parties are represented today. The largest is the Social Democrats, which is also the party that has played the most prominent role in Swedish politics in the past one hundred years. The other parties are the Moderates (formerly Conservatives), Liberals (a free-enterprise absolutizing party), Christian Democrats, Center Party (formerly Agrarians), Left Party (formerly Communists) and Green Party. The parties have traditionally been grouped into a rightist (non-socialist) and leftist (socialist) bloc. Toward the end of the 20th century, however, partially new dividing lines also began to play a major role, especially environmental issues and European economic and political integration. Today the parties face new challenges, among them a growing problem in recruiting new members, as well as a general distrust of established political institutions.In regard to the Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna -- KD), the party endorsed by refWrite, a special note is here occasioned:
The Christian Democratic Party was established in 1964 but played an inconspicuous role in Swedish politics for many years, with no seats in Parliament. Thanks to an election coalition with the Center Party in 1985, the party admittedly held one seat in the Parliament from 1985 to 1988, but only in 1991 did the Christian Democrats make it into Parliament on their own. [EoN: "...[T]he Christian Democrats advanced from 4.1% of vote in 1994 to 11.8% in 1998 at the expense of the more centrist Center and Liberal parties, which narrowly passed the 4% threshold. The Moderates' share of the vote held basically steady."] In the 2002 election, the [KD] party received 9.1 percent of the vote.In the recent past, the Left Party (former Communists) and the Greens (anti-EU) have ... "formed a parliamentary alliance with the Social Democratic minority government on economic policy and other issues." It's these parties, especially the Social Democrats, which control the Church of Sweden thru the internal voting of the Church Assembly itself.
The party's economic policies make it a "middle party" (along with the Center and Liberals) but otherwise the Christian Democrats clearly lean to the right. The party program points out that Christian ethics and Christian cultural heritage are of crucial importance to the party's ideology. This includes traits of both individualism and collectivism. Every human being is viewed as unique, but at the same time people need a sense of community with others in order to develop. The family plays a key role in this context. In the 1990s, the Christian Democrats focused successfully on social issues health care, schools and social services which have also been of central importance in recent election campaigns. Meanwhile they have tried to wash away the label of being an anti-abortion party.
The Christian Democrats have a positive attitude toward EU cooperation, without being a driving force on EU-related issues. They also adopted a position in favor of introducing the euro as the September 2003 referendum drew closer.
-- Politicarp
Further Research:
Encyclopedia of the Nations [EoN above]: Sweden: Political Parties
"Separation" of Church and State in Sweden
Religion, Politics, and the State: Cross-Cultural Observations
Anti-Christian political parties control elections in Church of Sweden
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