Elections, Elections, Elections

[sunday]

Regional landslide in Spain.

Andalusia, the most populated region of Spain and for a long time the largest reservoir of voters for the left, decided to grant a supermajority to the center-right.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/19/spain-andalucia-vote-regional-election-peoples-party

Unfortunately for the Right, that supermajority means no need of a coalition for governing.

[BansheeOne]

Quote

Sweden's ruling left-wing Social Democrats narrowly leading election — exit poll

50m ago

Social Democratic PM Magdalena Andersson will likely receive another term in office. The exit poll has a margin of error, and the final outcome will only be revealed once each vote is tallied.

Sweden's ruling left-wing Social Democrats look set to claim a narrow win in parliamentary elections on Sunday, according to exit polls.

A survey by Swedish public broadcaster SVT gave Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson's center-left bloc 49.8% of the votes against 49.2% for the opposition right-wing parties.

SVT has a margin of error, and the final outcome will only be known once all votes are tallied.

There are eight parties running to win seats in the parliament, or the Riksdag, and each of the parties belong to either the center-left bloc or the conservative bloc.

If the forecasts are confirmed by official results, Prime Minister  Magdalena Andersson would likely be in a position to remain in power since her Social Democrats party was projected to win 29.3% of the vote, according to SVT.  

Strong support for populist party

The conservative bloc includes Sweden Democrats, a popular anti-immigration party that made significant gains this election.

Swedish broadcaster SVT gave the right-wing party 20.5% of votes, which accounted for its best result so far.

[...]

https://m.dw.com/en/swedens-ruling-left-wing-social-democrats-narrowly-leading-election-exit-poll/a-63082635

[Ssnake]

Six minutes ago, the Social democrats & associated supporting parties were short one seat of a majority in parliament. I guess we'll know only tomorrow morning.

[BansheeOne]

Man, that was a drag.

Quote

Sweden election: PM Magdalena Andersson concedes victory to right-wing opposition

57m ago

Sweden's right-wing opposition appears to have won in a razor-thin electoral race. The big winner of the elections are the far-right Sweden Democrats, who could become part of government for the first time.

Sweden's right-wing opposition appears to have won a thin majority in the country's parliament with nearly all votes counted.

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said that she would resign and that preliminary results were clear enough to draw conclusions. She said that it was important that Sweden gets a new government as soon as possible.

Leader of the nationalist Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Akesson, declared victory and pledged to "put Sweden first."

Coalition leader Ulf Kristersson of the conservative Moderates will become Prime Minister if the results are confirmed.

"I will now start the work of forming a new government that can get things done, a government for all of Sweden and all citizens," Kristersson said.

The result is yet to be officially confirmed.

Results too close to call for days

The results were too close to call before postal and overseas votes had been included into the count. So far, the Moderates, Sweden Democrats, Christian Democrats and Liberals hold a two-seat lead over the governing Social Democrats.

Some 99% of votes from all 6,578 voting districts had been counted by late on Wednesday. If results were confirmed, the right-wing opposition would win 176 seats in the 349-seat parliament. 

The governing Social Democrats and its coalition would win 173 seats in this instance, the tallies showed. 

[...]

https://m.dw.com/en/sweden-election-pm-magdalena-andersson-concedes-victory-to-right-wing-opposition/a-63117673

[jmsaari]

And the next big question is will there be a majority right government with the Svenska Demokraterna, minority without them, or a coalition with the social democrats... 

[DB]

So, are they "right wing" or "far right", and what does that mean in Ikea-land anyway?

[sunday]

Quote

Make Sweden Great Again!

Gå–På, Caroleans!

Let Putin tremble in fear.

Edited September 14, 2022 by sunday

[jmsaari]

Just now, DB said:

So, are they "right wing" or "far right", and what does that mean in Ikea-land anyway?

Svenska Demokraterna? The swedish members might be able to answer better, but my impression is that they are actually not even very right, rather center-left if anything when it comes to economic policies, but anti-immigration and generally socially conservative. They've apparently cleaned up the party a bit from the overt racists as of late so all in all doesnt strike me as particularly radical far-right at this point. 

Re:right/left economically, the nordic countries have generally widespread acceptance of the idea that there should be a fairly robust public health care, school system and social safety net. Right-wing agenda is not so much to demolish that, but that it will collapse eventually unless national budget is balanced, expenses prioritized, and conditions for healthy private sector maintained. The left, well shall we say bit more optimistic... and the swedish left unfortunately quite a bit more realistic about economic realities than ours, which is not even tax-and-spend, but more take-debt-and-spend.

[Rickard N]

jmsaari is pretty on target. Our right side parties would be a fair bit left of the Democratic party I would say.

As for Sunday's response, Sverigedemokraterna is probably the party with most connections to Russia and Putin in modern times, so... no?

They sorta-kinda have a model politics in Orbán's Hungary, at least in foreign policy.

The main thing that is brought up is that they have roots in Nazi and/or anti imigration groups from the 80s and 90s and one of the founders was an outspoken Nazi. They DO have a lot of less than brilliant people in their midst even if they on the surface are removing them. One example is a member and local politician IIRC that said that we should mount MAG58s on the bridge to Denmark and keep furriners out.

/R

[jmsaari]

3 minutes ago, Rickard N said:

jmsaari is pretty on target. Our right side parties would be a fair bit left of the Democratic party I would say.

Well depends... analogies between countries have their limitations, but in general even if much of the nordic political spectrum would be to the left of Clinton democrats, even the Finnish social democrats would still be to the right of AOC/Bernie democrats. Not really sure where the mainstre dems are thes days, but listening to some of the things coming out of Biden administration it does seem like the whole party is swinging left fast...

[sunday]

14 minutes ago, Rickard N said:

(...)

As for Sunday's response, Sverigedemokraterna is probably the party with most connections to Russia and Putin in modern times, so... no?

They sorta-kinda have a model politics in Orbán's Hungary, at least in foreign policy.

(...)

/R

Those are interesting nuances.

Even if I was joking about reviving the Swedish army of the Great Northern War.

[rmgill]

28 minutes ago, Rickard N said:

jmsaari is pretty on target. Our right side parties would be a fair bit left of the Democratic party I would say.

There's still room for a MVGA party (Make Vikings Great Again). 

😉

More seriously, can not a left leaning party become a war party against the likes of Russia if push comes to shove? FDR was quite hawkish when it came to foreign policy however social welfare-ish he was. 

Edited September 14, 2022 by rmgill

[DKTanker]

39 minutes ago, Rickard N said:

jmsaari is pretty on target. Our right side parties would be a fair bit left of the Democratic party I would say.

The Swedish right is pushing a Marxist agenda?

[EchoFiveMike]

Scandanavian socialism doesn't work without Scandanvians.

So basically, the rising tide is nationalism.  Good.  S/F....Ken M

[Rick]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uS8A0TVE9A

Speaking of Scandinavia, is Mr. D'Souza correct ?

 

 

[Rickard N]

54 minutes ago, DKTanker said:

The Swedish right is pushing a Marxist agenda?

Depends on who you ask. Reading how everyone that likes public healthcare is a pinky commie, yes. But not really no. If our media is correct we are one of the only countries on the planet that allows private school paying dividends to the owners.

As for "our left" becoming hawks, well not right now at least. Just one year ago everyone who thought it might be a sensible idea to have a defensive force and thought the Russia might do some batshit crazy things were marked as a "cold war conscription hugger and Russofobic". Just three hours before the Russian invasi... eehhh "very special olympic military operation" a left wing newspaper posted a story on their website about how absurd people thinking that Russia would march across the Ukraine border were.

I mean our main conservative party said when they took office last time (16 years ago) that the military was a "special interest" (or something similar). Their just appointed minister of defense, who is an officer in the reserve, left office before his chair was even lukewarm. BTW the Swedish politician with the most spine in quite a long time.

/R

[BansheeOne]

10 hours ago, jmsaari said:

Svenska Demokraterna? The swedish members might be able to answer better, but my impression is that they are actually not even very right, rather center-left if anything when it comes to economic policies, but anti-immigration and generally socially conservative.

That's pretty much the standard for European right-wing parties; after all the "good old times" here include the much more statist economies, more massive welfare states etc. of the pre-globalization era.

[Rickard N]

14 hours ago, Rick said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uS8A0TVE9A

Speaking of Scandinavia, is Mr. D'Souza correct ?

 

 

Ooohh, 90 minutes of speech, maybe I'll watch it later.

/R

[lucklucky]

Quote

Our right side parties would be a fair bit left of the Democratic party I would say.

.....The Clinton Democratic Party do not exists anymore.

[Soren Ras]

On 9/15/2022 at 12:35 AM, Rick said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uS8A0TVE9A

Speaking of Scandinavia, is Mr. D'Souza correct ?

 

Broadly speaking he is pretty much on target, although of course there are differences between the various countries he doesn't delve into.

 

--

Soren

[Rick]

20 hours ago, Soren Ras said:

Broadly speaking he is pretty much on target, although of course there are differences between the various countries he doesn't delve into.

 

--

Soren

These differences are?

[Rick]

On 9/15/2022 at 9:05 AM, Rickard N said:

Ooohh, 90 minutes of speech, maybe I'll watch it later.

/R

Please do.

[jmsaari]

24 minutes ago, Rick said:

Please do.

Sort of curious myself but looking at spending most of weekend at the office to finish something that's already past due, doubt i will have a chance... a TL,DW summary of few sentences would be nice?

[Soren Ras]

20 hours ago, Rick said:

These differences are?

(D'Sourza's talk about Scandinavia only starts around the 31 minute mark and lasts a little under 10 minutes, so for those curious, you need not sit through the entire thing.)

He correctly points out that in general the creation of wealth is seen as a necessary prerequisite for the distribution schemes, meaning that you don't want to make it too difficult to become wealthy. Hence various experiments with a wealth tax, (partial)universal basic income or high corporate tax rates have been tried and abandoned when it became clear they did not work or provide the hoped-for benefits. It is generally easy to start a business and there is less red tape involved in doing so. Since the private sector generates most of the wealth, it must by and large be allowed to do so. Simply because a well functioning private sector allows for more tax money that can be spent by politicians to get re-elected.

And he is correct about the overall social contract by which the traditionally extremely homogenous Nordic societies have functioned, in which there is a sense that everyone must pay and everyone must be taken care of.  What D'Souza calls the politics of the tribe. Or at least that is the way it used to be when the Nordic welfare states were built.

But this is also where there are now clear differences between the countries. In particular, in Sweden, there has been a far more universal view of the glories of the Swedish welfare state, as something that every human across the planet would naturally recognize as superior once they saw it up close. And that is a big reason why Sweden basically decided that you didn't need to be a "Sven" (as D'Souza puts it) to be allowed in.

Of course, the enormous influx of refugees from third world countries into Sweden has also caused a number of problems or challenges, which is something the Swedes are struggling with right now. D'Souza claims that it is very hard to become one of the tribe. But Sweden can be seen to have tried its damnedest to prove the exact opposite proposition.

In Denmark, by contrast, that same question was hashed out politically in the period 1993-2015, by which time it became essentially settled : Yes, we need to secure our borders and impose strict controls with who we allow in. And assimilating the third world refugees is a lot harder than we thought and will take a lot more time than the diversity-is-our-strength crowd thought. That realization is now firmly entrenched in all the major political parties (excepting of course the most left wing ones), including the currently ruling social democrats.

So, in that sense D'Souza is correct to say that the Nordic countries (he says Scandinavians, but should be saying Nordic, since he references Finland as well, and there are many similarities between Finland and the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark) are not built with diversity in mind, quite unlike America, which was founded by a creed, not by a tribe.

 

--
Soren

 

 

[Rick]

2 hours ago, Soren Ras said:

(D'Sourza's talk about Scandinavia only starts around the 31 minute mark and lasts a little under 10 minutes, so for those curious, you need not sit through the entire thing.)

He correctly points out that in general the creation of wealth is seen as a necessary prerequisite for the distribution schemes, meaning that you don't want to make it too difficult to become wealthy. Hence various experiments with a wealth tax, (partial)universal basic income or high corporate tax rates have been tried and abandoned when it became clear they did not work or provide the hoped-for benefits. It is generally easy to start a business and there is less red tape involved in doing so. Since the private sector generates most of the wealth, it must by and large be allowed to do so. Simply because a well functioning private sector allows for more tax money that can be spent by politicians to get re-elected.

And he is correct about the overall social contract by which the traditionally extremely homogenous Nordic societies have functioned, in which there is a sense that everyone must pay and everyone must be taken care of.  What D'Souza calls the politics of the tribe. Or at least that is the way it used to be when the Nordic welfare states were built.

But this is also where there are now clear differences between the countries. In particular, in Sweden, there has been a far more universal view of the glories of the Swedish welfare state, as something that every human across the planet would naturally recognize as superior once they saw it up close. And that is a big reason why Sweden basically decided that you didn't need to be a "Sven" (as D'Souza puts it) to be allowed in.

Of course, the enormous influx of refugees from third world countries into Sweden has also caused a number of problems or challenges, which is something the Swedes are struggling with right now. D'Souza claims that it is very hard to become one of the tribe. But Sweden can be seen to have tried its damnedest to prove the exact opposite proposition.

In Denmark, by contrast, that same question was hashed out politically in the period 1993-2015, by which time it became essentially settled : Yes, we need to secure our borders and impose strict controls with who we allow in. And assimilating the third world refugees is a lot harder than we thought and will take a lot more time than the diversity-is-our-strength crowd thought. That realization is now firmly entrenched in all the major political parties (excepting of course the most left wing ones), including the currently ruling social democrats.

So, in that sense D'Souza is correct to say that the Nordic countries (he says Scandinavians, but should be saying Nordic, since he references Finland as well, and there are many similarities between Finland and the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark) are not built with diversity in mind, quite unlike America, which was founded by a creed, not by a tribe.

 

--
Soren

 

 

Thank you Soran, much appreciated !