• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

WI: Moderates win 2010 Swedish election

Tamar

Please step forward to the rear
Moderator
Location
A haunted house with a picket fence
Pronouns
she/her
Calling @Utgard96 and @Makemakean

In the 2010 election, the Moderate Party almost dethroned the Social Democrats as the largest party in Sweden - the SAP received 30.7% and 112 seats while the Moderates got 107 seats and 30.1%.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Mona Sahlin messes up on the campaign trail even more than she actually did IOTL and these results are reversed. How might the symbolism of coming second for the first time in a century affect the Social Democrats going forward? Could they go with a different leader?

In addition, five extra seats for the Moderates would mean the centre-right keeps a majority in the Riksdag and isn't forced into various deals with the opposition to get legislation through - does that change anything?
 
The Social Democrats coming in second? The symbolic implications?

You know that scene in Game of Thrones when Danearys says ”I have not come to stop the wheel. I have come to break the wheel.”?

Yeah, basically that. Of course, while everyone who knows anything about politics would be forced to acknowledge we were entering unchartered territory, no doubt the Social Democrats would remain in denial that anything had actually changed.

Ironically, it might actually make it easier for the Social Democrats in the long run to get the Centre and Liberals to work with them. The one truly big reason they are really awkward about cooperation with S on their own is because they doubt S ever negotiates in pure faith. Any calls for an end to bloc-based politics is (rightly, in my opinion) seen as the Social Democrats saying, ”we need to shut the Moderates out of influence forever and bring about a new era of Social Democratic hegemony, where the Social Democrats always are in government and holding the Prime Ministership, sometimes drawing support from the Left and sometimes from the Middle, but always in charge, and if any of you minor parties think that our demands are too high, know that we can always find someone else to work with!”

If the Social Democrats just became ”one party like the rest”, who knows?
 
Well yes, but ‘come first in the 2010 election’ was longer
People take far more stock in who comes in position N than they ought to. I still remember last election night when a girl in the local SSU (who later left politics after she came under fire for a joke she made on Twitter about hiding SD ballots) told me that "you know, the really important thing here is whether the Greens or SD come in third".
 
People take far more stock in who comes in position N than they ought to. I still remember last election night when a girl in the local SSU (who later left politics after she came under fire for a joke she made on Twitter about hiding SD ballots) told me that "you know, the really important thing here is whether the Greens or SD come in third".

Sandra Ackefjord, I take it?
 
Small world.

I actually have for a long while had some problem with how everyone in the professional political commentariat in Sweden seem to know one another, and arguably twitter and facebook has only made the situation worse, for now they're all following each other and being friends with another.

I met Fredrik Segerfeldt some years ago, and he told me that "yeah, outside of debates, we're on pretty good terms with one another, actually, we pretty much have this understanding that we never discuss politics in private".

Strange people.

Though I suppose it makes sense. If you are a Johan Norberg or a Mattias Svensson or a Göran Greider or a Daniel Suhonen or whatever, your livelihood to a certain extent depends on you getting to show up and debate your ideological opponents on radio and TV and at various other events. You're basically co-dependent, in a sense, so it makes sense that you would try to be on good terms with the people who in a very real sense are your colleagues and co-workers.
 
I met Fredrik Segerfeldt some years ago, and he told me that "yeah, outside of debates, we're on pretty good terms with one another, actually, we pretty much have this understanding that we never discuss politics in private".

Strange people.
Yeah, I really don't understand how people of wildly different political views can be willing to put those views aside and get along for even as much as a weekend. Just completely baffling to me.
 
Back
Top