2009-08-05

Scandinavian Politics: latest

Here's some news from four Nordic countries, as their party politics
awakes from summer-induced catatonia.


* In DENMARK, Sven Auken has died. He was vice-chairman of parliament
and had at various times been minister of the environment, energy and
labour, and Social Democratic leader, but never prime minister.

As my colleague Flemming Juul Christiansen (Aarhus University) has
noted, "he was one of the first Danish cand.scient.pols. here from the
Department of Political Science in Aarhus, where he also held his only
employed position in the beginning of the 1970s before getting elected
to parliament in 1971, always from Aarhus." Jacob Christensen
(University of Southern Denmark), meanwhile, has a typically thoughtful
piece on Auken's career on his blog (http://jacobchristensen.name).


* In NORWAY, the campaign before the election on September 14th kicked
off yesterday with a joint press conference by the leaders of the three
government parties, Labour, the Centre and the Socialist Left. They
specified seven pledges, some of them fairly uncontroversial (jobs,
public services, law and order, "international solidarity"), one or two
a bit livelier (no to privatising schools). Rather more interesting was
the comment of the Centre's leader. This is the first time that her
party has held office together with the left-wing parties, and she
underlined its commitment to the coalition by saying that the Centre had
achieved more with them than it had in previous alliances.

Polls suggest that the government has every chance of retaining power,
but without its current parliamentary majority. The parties to its right
could well win a collective majority - but they are split. Easily the
biggest of them is the Progress Party, but it is persona non grata to
the Christian Democrats and the Liberals. The latter have indicated that
they would prefer a left-wing government to one that included Progress;
and, for its part, Progress has said it will oppose any government that
it is left out of.


* In FINLAND, meanwhile, an MP for the opposition Social Democrats,
Antti Kalliomäki, has caused a bit of a stir by suggesting that his
party abandon the system, which some call the "triangle drama", in which
two of the three big parties gang up in government while the third leads
the opposition. Kalliomäki reckons that the current government is too
far removed ideologically from his own Social Democrats for his party to
consider joining either of the government's main components, the Centre
and the Conservatives, in a future coalition.

Another step towards the sort of right-left, two-bloc system that has
become increasingly rigid in Denmark, Norway and Sweden? Perhaps not.
Kalliomäki's alternative is to include all six opposition parties in an
alternative coalition. As these six include the Christian Democrats and
even the right-populist True Finns, the scenario is scarcely realistic,
even in Finland. But it has got people talking.


* Finally, in SWEDEN, a rare thing happened yesterday: a political
resignation. Marianne Samuelsson was not a front-line politician,
although she had previously been co-leader of the Greens. Instead, she
was a regional governor, of Gotland. Such government-appointed positions
are usually shared out between figures from all the parties.

Samuelsson's fall was caused by her being secretly recorded by a
subordinate. She was caught saying that a businessman, with a lot of
local employees, should be exempted from the planning-permission laws
that he had breached in extending his home. Gotland can't just live on
tourism, she said, clearly implying that individual employers had to be
kept sweet so that their operations would remain on the island. It was
hard to see how she could continue after so flagrantly breaching the
principle of equality before the law. She had apparently wanted to do
so, however, until she was bluntly told to resign yesterday by the
municipalities minister (a Christian Democrat).

Maybe special treatment for influential individuals is actually
commonplace, as Samuelsson also implied in her unwitting broadcast.
Still, there's no need to feel too sorry for her. She won't be
unemployed. Instead, she'll be given other duties in the government
offices, though it hasn't been decided exactly what they will be.


Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University, Stockholm
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap

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