Elections ’14
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ELECTIONS ’14 A Mundus International Journal Elections ’14 is a journal of six issues, which monitors and analyses the elections to the European Parliament and the Swedish Riksdag in 2014. The journal has been specifically developed for foreign missions. PART 6: POST-ELECTIONS - THE ROAD AHEAD October, 2014 Part 6: post-elections - the road ahead ELECTIONS ’14 A Mundus International Journal 2014 marks an important political year in Sweden with elections to the European Parliament on May 25 and the national elections being held on September 14. The series has been specifically developed as a tool for political reporting of foreign missions and contains exclusive research and analyses. introduction .................................................................................................................. 2 the 2014 riksdag election ............................................................................................ 3 The campaign ............................................................................................................... 3 The election .................................................................................................................. 4 The Alliance .................................................................................................................. 4 The aftermath ............................................................................................................... 5 work in the riksdag ..................................................................................................... 6 government policy ....................................................................................................... 8 Foreign policy in the Statement of Government Policy ................................................. 9 the cabinet ..................................................................................................................... 9 At the ministries .......................................................................................................... 14 local elections ............................................................................................................. 16 Stockholm ................................................................................................................... 16 Göteborg ..................................................................................................................... 17 Malmö ......................................................................................................................... 18 the path forward ......................................................................................................... 18 appendix 1 ................................................................................................................... 19 references ..................................................................................................................... 20 1 Part 6: post-elections - the road ahead INTRODUCTION 2014 has been a major electoral year for the Swedes. The May election saw the Greens becoming Sweden’s second largest party in the European Parliament and the Sweden Democrats and the Feminist Initiative gaining their first seats in Brussels. The September elections marked the end of eight years of centre-conservative rule in Sweden and saw the Sweden Democrats becoming the third biggest party in the Riksdag after successfully managing to pit an anti-immigrant sentiment against support for traditional welfare state policies in the election campaign. This year, Swedish politics has witnessed fragmentation of the electorate resulting a decline in support for the formerly dominant parties - the Social Democrats and the Moderates - in favour of the Sweden Democrats and, to a lesser extent, the Feminist Initiative. While these two parties are very different, they share an emphasis on single issues rather than classical left-against-right politics. The Social Democrats and Moderates are struggling to adapt and to develop a better understanding of why voters are making the switches to these parties. Neither party managed to capture the voters' growing engagement in issues such as the environment, gender equality, anti-racism and immigration. The rise in support for the Sweden Democrats has created post-electoral complications and raised voices for the political parties to engage in a debate on the country’s immigration- and integration policies. Swedish politics, which has been fairly static for the past few years, is demonstrating powerful political movements, which the established political parties are struggling to adapt to. At a time when a new election cannot yet be taken off the table, voices are being heard to end the bloc politics that for decades has locked Sweden’s largest parties into left and right coalitions. It remains to be seen how this will affect Sweden’s long-established political and intellectual identity. With Fredrik Reinfeldt’s announcement that he would step down as party leader on election night, leaving the Alliance de-facto without a leader, the Social Democrats with historically low electoral support and the Sweden Democrats becoming the third biggest party in the Riksdag, a fog of uncertainty swept in over the Swedish political landscape. For the first time ever Sweden will have a minority coalition government led by the Social Democrats and the Green Party. The outcome of the election has thus increased the level of uncertainty surrounding Sweden’s future domestic policies. 2 Part 6: post-elections - the road ahead THE 2014 RIKSDAG ELECTION The campaign After ten years as party leader and eight years as Prime Minister, the wear and tear of governing was starting to take its toll and even right-wing pundits were admitting that Fredrik Reinfeldt and his Finance Minister, Anders Borg, were running out of ideas. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of a cautious and complicated party political environment (following the party leader challenges the party had experienced) the Social Democrats united around Stefan Löfven and managed to put together a decent election campaign. The campaign may not have been a show of vision, but rather underscored that the Social Democrats could be trusted again. Education had risen as one of the voters’ most important issues – not least in the light of Sweden’s free fall in the Pisa-evaluations1 last December. The Social Democrats were perceived to be the party with the best policies on education and this probably benefitted them in the election. The issue of education also tied in with the wider concerns voters had about public sector reform. As the election campaign entered its final phase, political journalists complained that it had been so predictable that they were contemplating changing their jobs. The Moderates were struggling to gain momentum in the election campaign (having lost steam with a weak result in the EP election), but there were some signs they had not given up hope. Towards the end of the election campaign, the Moderates released the ‘Building Sweden’ slogan and began negative campaigning, especially in the Stockholm region. And, in the final weeks, a ‘game changer’ did occur as Mr Reinfeldt delivered the traditional ‘summer speech’2 on Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm. The Moderate party unexpectedly brought the unstable world situation into the election campaign, asking the Swedish people to ‘open their hearts’ for refugees fleeing from war and terror in the Middle East, while warning of the financial effects of increased immigration. This move was later heavily criticised for playing into the hands of the Sweden Democrats. The Sweden Democrats thanked Mr Reinfeldt with a huge ad in Sweden’s leading morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, claiming victory since even the Prime Minister had accepted their cost analysis of immigration. One leading SD-politician summarised the party’s election campaign by saying: ”It’s been a match against an open goal since Reinfeldt declared that there is no more money for welfare. To ask us to ’open our hearts’ means that we must ’open our wallets’. It’s been a very thankful task to explain this to our voters”. The Green Party struggled throughout the campaign to put environmental issues in the spotlight, but ultimately failed. Instead it was the Feminist Initiative, described by one writer as the ‘option for the discontented middle class voter, that received much media attention in the last months. The Feminist Initiative, with its emphasis on feminism and anti-racism, portrayed itself as being diametrically opposed to the Sweden Democrats. The most important issue to voters this election was by far education. Sweden has been experiencing a severe ”Pisa shock” ever since last December. The war in eastern Ukraine did not affect the Riksdag election directly, despite efforts by the Moderate Party to highlight the unstable international situation in the election campaign. 1 The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment 2 All party leaders deliver ‘summer speeches’ in late August every year 3 Part 6: post-elections - the road ahead The election The Social Democrats won the election in the sense that their leader, Stefan Löfven, became Prime Minister. However, from an historical perspective3 the party performed very poorly in the election (31 per cent) and failed to achieve its goal of 35 per cent. In fact, the Social Democrats’ voting numbers were only marginally better than those in the last election, which was viewed as a big failure. Stefan Löfven