Sweden Gets an 8th Party

Val.se Swedish Election results in Swedish

World Elections Analysis of the election in English

Swedish elections were last week. I waited a bit to post about it until official results were in. Given my interest in the nation, I seem almost required to post about it. During the elections in Germany, I made a pretty detailed post about all the parties in Germany, however, I can't really do the same for Sweden as despite my interest, I'm not terribly well aware of the political situation and the divisions between the parties. The 4 right-wing parties, known collectively as the Alliance all seem basically the same to me.

The Social Democrats managed to stay the largest party, but just barely, winning only 30.66% of the vote compared to the Moderates 30.06%. While they are the largest party, this is actually their worst result since 1914. It is also the best result by the Moderates since 1914. The World Elections site points to the fact that because the Moderates have largely embraced the welfare state, they have undermined the Social Democrats by giving them less to attack them on. To me, it's kind of sad to see the Social Democrats in such a weakened position as I really came to admire what they achieved while I was studying there.

Up until recently, it really seemed like the Social Democrats were going to win the election. They had largely lost the 2006 election due to an unpopular leader, however, once he resigned they retook a strong lead in the polls. As the election neared, support began to drop off as the new leader, Sahlin, has been rather ineffectual and conditions under the Moderates has been pretty good. Sweden is one of the few western nations with a solidly growing economy.

Prior to the 2010, it seemed likely that one of the minor parties would drop below the 4% threshold needed to get a seat in the Riksdag. As I mentioned before, the 4 parties that make up the Alliance have little to distinguish themselves from each other, so the more dominant Moderates were starting to take votes from the three smaller parties. Also, the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party not yet in the Riksdag, were gaining in the polls, reducing available votes to the established seven parties. Polling prior to the election showed the Christian Democrats dropping below 4% on a few occasion, but they managed to hold on to 5.6% of the vote in the end, even with the Sweden Democrats entering the Riksdag with 5.7%.

Even though there are now 8 parties in the Riksdag, it seems that the there is some concentration of votes happening. Of the the 8 parties, only 3 increased their share of the vote. The People's Party and the Left gained votes, but due to high turnout, they lost in relative terms. Of the 4 right-wing parties, only the Moderates increased their number of seats. Similarly, of the 3 left-wing parties, only the Greens gained seats (as predicted in my post about green parties, they are now the 3rd largest party).

The big controversy this election was the Sweden Democrats entering the Riksdag on a rather xenophobic platform. None of the other parties are willing to work with them, which creates kind of a problem in that the Alliance is two seats short of a majority. However, unlike most countries that require a government to have a majority, governments in Sweden can have a minority as long as a majority doesn't vote against them. Given that the alternatives are to have the Sweden Democrats be in government, have the Greens leave the Social Democrats coalition, or hold new elections, it seems unlikely that the Social Democrats will block the continuation of the Alliance government. Minority governments are actually the norm in Sweden. The Social Democrats rarely received more than 50% of the vote, but were able to form governments on their own as the Communists, now the Left, would not vote against them.

Here's a map of the largest party in Sweden by län back in 2006. Red is Social Democrat and Blue is Moderate.


Compare to 2010.

Even though the Social Democrats only have a 0.6% edge over the Moderates, the Moderates' votes are concentrated in the population centers of Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö, and Uppsala. The Social Democrats managed to get 51.86% in the northernmost, but sparsely populated, län of Norrbottens.

Another map of interest is how the coalitions as a whole did in each län. This back in 2006, Red is the Red-Green coalition led by the Social Democrats, blue is the Alliance led by the Moderates.

Even though the Moderates were only the largest party in Stockholm, together with the rest of the Alliance, they managed to get over 50% in much of southern Sweden.

The 2010 map is a bit different. Gray is where neither Red-Green nor Alliance hold majority due to the presence of the Sweden Democrats.

As the the Red-Green and Alliance received similar shares of the vote in the gray areas, the map basically show what by Swedish standards are swing län.

In case people are wondering, the Pirate Party increased their share of the vote, but only from 0.63% to 0.65%. In 2006, the district where the Pirates received the largest share of the vote (3.63%) was the district where my dormitory was located when I attended Uppsala. This year, the Pirates best district was one near Lund University that gave them 4.72%.