Swedish election results

There was a historic outcome in the Swedish election yesterday.

* The Moderates, with their best result since 1928 and the biggest jump in support ever by a Swedish party, led the opposition Alliance for Sweden to victory. The four Alliance parties will have a small but clear parliamentary majority. Moderate leader Fredrik Reinfeldt will take over as prime minister in three weeks or so.

* The ruling Social Democrats obtained their worst score since 1920. Göran Persson, party leader and prime minister since 1996, announced last night his intention to resign from both positions. A special party congress will elect his successor in March.

How could this electoral shift happen when the economy is growing so impressively? Much will be surely written on the subject, but, very briefly, two reasons can be identified.

1. In a speech on May 1st, Persson predicted that unemployment would not be a major issue in the campaign. He was wrong. The Alliance pushed it relentlessly, and their success in doing so was apparent in the campaign debates, in the main exit poll published this morning, and, crucially, in the criticism aired from within the labour movement that the Social Democrats - remarkably, given their historical emphasis on it - lacked a convincing strategy for addressing the issue.

2. The effort put into the Alliance by its four parties has been immense, and clearly boosted their collecive credibility as an alternative government. It also presented a favourable contrast with the left bloc, whose three parties preferred to leave policy compromises and, perhaps just as importantly, the form of their co-operation - full coalition, semi-coalition or something else - until after the election. The Left and the Greens' leaders criticised the Social Democrats for their refusal to promise a coalition in advance.

There may still be small adjustments in the final results, but just now they stand as the following (with their 2002 equivalents in brackets).


+ Left Party: 5.8% (8.3%), 22 seats (30)
+ Social Democrats: 35.2% (39.8%), 130 seats (144)
+ Greens: 5.2% (4.6%), 19 seats (17)
LEFT BLOC: 46.2% (52.7%), 171 seats (191)

+ Centre Party: 7.9% (6.1%), 29 seats (22)
+ Liberals: 7.5% (13.3%), 28 seats (48)
+ Christian Democrats: 6.6% (9.1%), 24 seats (33)
+ Moderates: 26.1% (15.2%), 97 seats (55)
ALLIANCE: 48.1% (43.7%), 178 seats (158)

Turnout seems set to be comfortably above 80%.

Source: Election Authority (val.se).


As can be seen, the Left, Liberals and Christian Democrats all suffered significant losses - but probably not to the extent that, given the circumstances, their party leaders' positions will be threatened. Apart from the Moderates, the big winners were the Centre. Votes given to parties outside parliament rose markedly, with the far-right Sweden Democrats winning nearly 2% and Feminist Initiative about 1%.

Best,

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

Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@sh.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/

Scandinavian Politics: election latest

1. The Swedish campaign has entered its last few days. Most polls give the
bourgeois Alliance a very small lead, but basically the rival blocs are
neck and neck.

The hacking scandal rumbles on. (Some are suggesting that the former
Liberal party secretary, who resigned last week, has not been entirely
straight about how he reacted when he heard in March about the intrusion
into the Social Democrats' intranet.) But while the Liberals have clearly
lost support, their decline hasn't (so far) been quite as catastrophic as
some predicted; and most of that supoprt seems to have gone to other
Alliance parties.

Otherwise, the tightness of the contest has been reflected by the
unusually harsh words that have been exchanged by the prime minister and
the Alliance leader in their most recent debates. It really could go
either way on Sunday.

Members of the list might be interested in a longish article about the
election and the Swedish model in general that's in this week's Economist.
It's available free via the magazine's website
(economist.com/world/europe). The Economist's liberal view on things is,
as usual, fairly apparent; and there are a few slightly irritating factual
errors. But it's not a bad discussion.

2. For rather mysterious technical reasons, I'm having trouble updating
the group's website. But I can at least inform you via this message that I
have new co-ordinates (see below), effective from now.

Best,

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

Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be
interested. To join the Scandinavian politics mailing list, send a message
to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@sh.se). If you want to send something
to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages,
just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/

Scandinavian Politics: more notices

Hej to all on the Scandinavian Politics list,

Two items.


1. PSA CONFERENCE 2007. It’s time once again for us to apply for panels at
the PSA’s annual conference (www.psa.ac.uk/2007), which next year will be
at the University of Bath on April 11th-13th.

The deadline for panel proposals is just a few weeks away, on September
30th, so send ideas for panels and individual papers to me as soon as you
can. We didn't manage to organise any panels last year, so let's make a
special effort this time. For those of you who haven't been to a PSA
conference before, I can say that the atmosphere is usually relaxed and
constructive, so no one should be apprehensive about presenting research,
even if the paper submitted is still work in progress. I could think of
presenting something along the lines of "Europe and party organisational
change", but it's very likely that we can accommodate papers with rather
different themes.

There will also be the chance for postgraduate students to receive a
modest subsidy for their travel costs and conference fees from our group's
funds. Anyone who's interested, or who can think or someone who might be
interested, should get in touch with me.


2. SWEDISH CAMPAIGN LATEST. As many will have heard, the hacking scandal
that blew up at the start of the week has definitely not fizzled out. The
chief hacker, the press secretary of the Liberals' youth wing, was
immediately sacked. But on Tuesday the national party's own press
secretary, who seems to have used information from the Social Democrats'
intranet to schedule Liberal policy initiatives, took a "time-out" (sic)
from her job after being questioned by the police. Then, just a few hours
later, the Liberal party secretary resigned, after he admitted knowing
about the intrusion way back in March. He'd apparently told the chief
hacker then that it had to stop. But he failed to make sure that it did
stop – and, worse, he lied on Monday about how much he'd known and when.
No one has yet suggested that the party leader, Lars Leijonborg, knew
anything about the instrusion until last Sunday. But he, too, failed to
come clean until Tuesday about how much the party secretary had known, and
Leijonborg's own position seemed thus to be crumbling. His questioning by
journalists on TV tonight, scheduled long ago, might be his last chance to
recover his standing.

Now, I wonder if the reaction to this political espionage has been
somewhat over the top. Everyone agrees that the Social Democrats' intranet
security was pathetically weak. But the hitherto embattled ruling party
has, of course, seized gleefully on the affair (and usually not as crassly
as the Social Democrats' own party secretary, who responded to Liberal
suggestions that they were overdoing their indignation by accusing
Leijonborg of acting "like a rapist who blames his victim"). The prime
minister, Göran Persson, has taken the opportunity to come over all grave
and statesmanlike. Certainly, although the scandal wasn't discussed, he
was in crushing form in last night's TV debate with Fredrik Reinfeldt, the
opposition Alliance's informal leader. Reinfeldt also gave a decent
account of himself. But there are already indications that Liberal support
will be hit hard by the scandal, and the Social Democrats clearly feel
that they now have every chance of retaining power.


Best,

Nick Aylott.

Scandinavian Politics: elections

Hej to all on the Scandinavia Politics mailing list,

I have two notices about elections in this part of the world.


1. First, the Norwegian election of a year ago. The first report from the
Norwegian Election Studies group - Bernt Aaardal and Stavn Guro, "Enda
flere skifter parti" (www.ssb.no/samfunnsspeilet) - has now been published
by Statistics Norway. As the title suggests, it's in Norwegian. But one of
the authors, Bernt Aaardal, has also written a preliminary report in
English, "How to Lose a Walk-Over Election"
(www.samfunnsforskning.no/page/Publikasjoner/Publikasjoner_Rapporter/7457/29622.html),
based on exit polls and official statistics. (Thanks to Elin Haugsgjerd
Allern of the Institute for Social Research in Oslo for this tip.)


2. Meanwhile, with less than a fortnight to go before polling day, the
already exciting Swedish election campaign is becoming even more so. On
Sunday evening, in a scandal that one political scientist compared to
Watergate (which was perhaps just a slight exaggeration), it was revealed
that senior figures in the Liberal campaign had repeatedly gained access
to the Social Democrats' intranet, which contains sensitive information
about the Social Democrats' election strategy and tactics. The police have
raided the Liberals' central office, and prosecutions are likely. The
Liberal leader has deplored the intrusion, and the trespassers so far
revealed have all been from Liberal Youth. But it seems unlikely that they
kept their information entirely to themselves, and some Social Democrats'
have complained that Liberal campaign initiatives have been uncannily
well-timed to pre-empt those of the ruling party.

This scandal may just fizzle out, or it may help the Social Democrats to
recover in a campaign that has hitherto gone rather badly for them. After
pulling back the lead enjoyed by the four-party, centre-right "Alliance
for Sweden", the Social Democrats and their allies have - according to
most, but not all, opinion polls - slipped back again since the Alliance
agreed, some weeks ago, to abolish the current system of property tax.
(That agreement subsequently unravelled somewhat, but the lead in the
polls remained.)

The real possibility of a rare election defeat for the Social Democrats
might seem odd in the context of the vigorous growth of the Swedish
economy. But this growth has, at least until recently, been pretty much of
the jobless variety, and the Alliance has succeeded in placing
unemployment - which, when people on public retraining schemes are
counted, is about 9 per cent, and considerably higher among the young - at
the centre of the campaign. Indeed, some of the more outspoken Social
Democrats have criticised the response of the party leadership to the
Alliance's emphasis on unemployment, which has basically been to deny that
it's much of a problem.


Best,

Nick Aylott.

Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be
interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message
to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send
something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional
messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia.

Scandinavian Politics latest

Hej to everyone on the Scandinavian politics list,

Many apologies for the long period of silence from me, which can only partly be explained by the tradition, in Sweden at least, of the country more or less closing down during the summer. I've also had (happy) distractions on the family front, which I won't bore you with.

I have two brief notices and some short comments about political developments in Scandinavia.


1. I'm told by the PSA that "The editors of the PSA News are planning to make the September edition of the News a special ‘specialist group’ issue and would appreciate and welcome all reports from all on specialist group activities. Copy deadline is 14th August so can you please get your items by e-mail to the editorial team".

We've had plans to do stuff other than simply use this mailing list as a forum for communication, but time pressure always seems to frustrate these plans, so nothing much has happened since our London seminar a few years ago. We do have some cash (a few hundred pounds) in the kitty, however, which is available for anyone to use in ways that are (a) academic and (b) related somehow to Nordic politics. This could involve hosting a small conference or workshop, which would ideally be open to everyone but need not necessarily be so. I'm completely open to other ideas, too.

Meanwhile, do send me absolutely anything that you think might be appropriate for the mailing list – book news and reviews, articles, events, comments on current politics, whatever.


2. This will probably be my last message from my current institutional address. Again, I won't bore you with details. But, after nearly five tremendous years in Umeå, I'm moving next term to Södertörn University College, outside Stockholm.


3. The possible reorientation of the Danish party system seems – possibly – to be continuing.

At least some Social Liberals, long in bed with the Social Democrats, seem to be becoming increasingly open to a deal with the Liberal-Conservative government. The attraction for the Social Liberals is not only to get closer to where power lies. It's also to pull the government away from its relationship with the increasingly truculent Danish People's Party - one of whose leading lights made, even by his party's standards, some extraordinarily apocalyptic comments about Muslims recently in the newish Swedish news magazine, Fokus (fokus.se). Current Social Liberal leader Marianne Jelved is still cool on the idea of a shift, but others – most loudly, MP Nasar Khader – are keener.

My colleague Jacob Christensen will no doubt give this more attention on his excellent blog (blog.jacobchristensen.name) when he gets back from holiday.


4. Earlier in Denmark, broad cross-party agreement was reached on a major long-term package of welfare reforms. For brief details in English, see the June editions of the not-bad-at-all newspaper, the Copenhagen News, available online (www.cphpost.dk).


5. The Swedish election campaign is finally getting underway this week. With the two blocs neck and neck in the polls, one underlying issue is whether the four parties in the centre-right "Alliance for Sweden" can resist the temptation to turn their fire on each other in their desperation for votes, which they usually end up doing. It promises to be an exciting time for a political scientist. The election is on September 17th.


6. Meanwhile, a major topic of Swedish domestic political discussion in the last few weeks (admittedly, there's been little competition) has been the impending final report in an official "Inquiry into Power, Integration and Structural Discrimination" – that is, on ethnic relations in Sweden. Chief investigator has been a professor of "social work" ("applied sociology" might be better translation), Masoud Kamali, who has attracted massive criticism from all quarters of the media. The story of his inquiry is a long and rather bizarre one, but I'll keep this summary brief.

Basically, Kamali has a big idea, which he applies in pretty much all his very frequent appearances in the printed media. It is that Swedish society and Swedish culture, like others in Europe, are fundamentally racist; that their very essence rests on an identification of "the other", that is, non-European peoples; and that this explains the disadvantages suffered by ethnic minorities in the country today. Few academics would argue that there is obviously nothing in this argument. But not many, even those of a post-modern persuasion, would push it in such a rigid, encompassing and downright provocative form – especially in an official report. "Sweden needs a new [social integration] policy," he wrote recently. "The era of creating an integrated society based on the concept of ein Volk, ein Reich [sic] is past" (DN July 13th).

These eyebrow-raising allusions aren't the only reason why Kamali is controversial. He has been accused of offering little or no empirical evidence for his sweeping arguments. (I can't say I've read the official reports, but I have read the accompanying summaries published in the newspaper, DN. The one on political parties, on Dec 22nd 2005, was of particular interest to me, of course. I must say that it read like a sentence that had been painfully stretched to 1,500 words.) He also tends to respond to critics by attacking their sincerity or motives. Public figures of non-European extraction are said to have sold out to the dominant Swedish culture; apparently, he once referred in print to some of them as "Uncle Toms". On Sunday he told DN that the criticism he'd suffered while leading the inquiry had been worse than the physical torture he'd endured in his native Iran.

The saga has also been rather embarrassing for the Social Democratic government. This is because the original inquiry was led by someone else, a political scientist from Uppsala. In 2003 Kamali, a member of the inquiry, in effect staged a coup, by persuading the responsible minister to downgrade the original investigation and to appoint him as leader of a new one. Numerous political scientists in Sweden were furious at what they saw as the ideological manipulation of these official reports, which are supposed to be politically impartial. The relevant minister was Mona Sahlin, who must be quite relieved that she now has another portfolio.


Best,

Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se

Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/

Scandinavian Politics latest

Hej to members of the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group's mailing list,

There have been several interesting and/or entertaining developments in Scandinavian politics recently, and I thought I'd send a brief summary to the list.


- In NORWAY, unprecedented coalition talks between the parties of the "red-green" alliance that won a majority of seats (though not votes) in last month's election have concluded successfully. The new government was announced yesterday.

* Labour's leader, Jens Stoltenberg, will of course be the new prime minister. Including his, Labour gets ten of the 19 cabinet seats. One of those is the new foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, described by Aftenposten as "a cosmopolitan, a European [he studied political science in France, apparently] and a red flag for the EU opponents" in the two other coalition parties (although the "suicide clause", by which the coalition agrees to dissolve if one of its number mentions EU membership, remains).

* The Socialist Left gets its first five cabinet positions. More notable is that its leader, Kristin Halvorsen, gets the finance minister's job.

* The Centre Party gets the four remaining places. They include the regional-government portfolio, taken by party leader Åslaug Haga, and the oil-and-energy job, which goes (surprisingly) to an ex-leader, the splendidly named Odd Roger Enoksen.


- In SWEDEN, with less than a year to go now before the election, the field has become even more crowded and even more interesting.

* Two weeks ago, the June List (www.junilistan.se), which did so well in last year's European election, decided that it would contest the national election, too. A recent poll gave it nearly 5 per cent support, which would take it into parliament.

In addition to its soft Euroscepticism ("Yes to Europe, No to an EU state"), the party's preliminary platform has two other pillars: decentralisation ("Shift power into the country") and employment ("A people in work"). The mix could be described as modestly economic liberal, with things like tax rebates for work to improve incentives. But there are a few classic populist crowd-pleasers – decisive referendums on citizens' initiatives, a big cut in the number of MPs – thrown in.

It is far from clear how the coalition of cross-spectrum Eurosceptics that the List attracted so successfully last year will be maintained on the basis of even this fairly parsimonious policy stance. A selection of issues on which the June List's candidates will be expected to set out their "own platforms" implies that a very wide range of opinions among its candidates is envisaged – yet it seems unlikely that many away from the centre-right would sign up to the core platform.

Then there's the organisational challenge. Party leader Nils Lundgren is already talking of "democratising" the List's entirely elite-led internal structure; as yet, it doesn't even have members. How he attempts that will be fascinating to watch.

* What's more, there may be yet more competition in that part of the spectrum. On Sunday a conference of numerous regional "healthcare parties" decided on a basic platform of their own. This, too, looks cautiously to the right. It expresses opposition, for instance, to the government's attempts to stop the engagement of more private companies in delivering healthcare. Still, some of the regional parties are against forming a "Swedish Healthcare Party" to run in the national election. The big decision on whether to do so will be taken on December 3rd.

* Last but certainly not least, Feminist Initiative (www.feministisktinitiativ.se) has had more than its fair share of attention in the Swedish media recently. Just over a month ago, its founding conference confirmed that it would stand in the 2006 election. Even before that congress, however, and certainly since, Feminist Initiative has tested sternly the old dictum that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

For some time, three broad ideological elements have been observable in Feminist Initiative's ranks. There are the "old feminists", associated with earlier political movements and concerned primarily about basic distributional issues. Then there are the radical feminists, who share a sweeping view of the structural oppression of women by men. They have probably been most visibly represented by one of the three "spokespeople" elected by the congress, the former Left Party leader, Gudrun Schyman. Third, there are the "gender feminists", who push "HBT" (homosexual, bisexual, transsexual) interests, and who are often academics associated with post-modern or "queer" theories of gender-construction.

The trouble is, the first and the third of those groups have been in increasingly acrimonious conflict. Last week some astonishingly bitter personal attacks appeared in the media. Several traditional feminists have resigned from their executive positions in Feminist Initiative in protest at the influence exercised by the gender-feminist element. Last week, a central figure in that element - a professor of gender studies and, by all accounts, a rather abrasive personality - had accusations of academic plagiarism thrown at her. She too then resigned from Feminist Initiative's national executive, declaring that, with her subject under such "systematic" attack, she had decided to prioritise its defence over her political engagement.

It will be quite a task for Schyman to lead Feminist Initiative over this disastrous period of infighting. In stark contrast to its profile in the headlines, the new party is currently invisible in the opinion polls.


- Finally, DENMARK has also seen some colourful politics recently. Three weeks ago, the minister of social affairs, Eva Kjer Hansen, declared that inequality can be a dynamic force in society. This, of course, is a scandalous assertion in Scandinavia, and she was forced to retract immediately.

But some of her party colleagues have been less prepared to avoid controversy. A couple of weeks ago, Liberals frustrated at the ultra-pragmatism of Anders Fogh Rasmussen's government launched a new party, which seeks the sort drastic tax-reductions and scaling back of the welfare state that Fogh Rasmussen himself, in his youth, used to advocate. The new party's name in Danish, Liberalisterne (www.liberalisterne.dk), I think is best translated as "Libertarians". But I'm open to alternative suggestions.


Best,

Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se

Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/

Swedish Politics: revamped list

Greetings to all on the new mail-list of the PSA’s Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group,

Hej from Umeå, where the snow has almost gone and has been replaced by rather British weather (http://webcam.educ.umu.se/). I have a few items for your attention.

* FIRST, I’m copying this to several people who might be interested, but who aren’t technically subscribers to the list. In fact, to get round the awkwardness of actually signing up to the Keele-based group list, I’ve decided to replace it with a simple mail list of its existing members, plus a few others. (This means that, if you want to circulate an item, you have to send it to me first.) If anyone does NOT want to receive occasional messages in future, just let me know. I certainly won’t take offence.

* SECOND, I’ve written the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group’s report for 2003. It’s not the most exciting document that you’ll ever read, but, if you do want to see a copy, just let me know. The document, like those written by the PSA’s 39 other specialist groups, will eventually be posted on the association’s website (www.psa.ac.uk).

* THIRD, I should mention that this report suggests certain ways in which we could use the group’s resources. One is to offer small grants to postgraduates who want to present papers at our PSA conference panels. Another is to offer help with travel expenses to a group member or members who want to take part in a workshop, here in Umeå in August, on the Swedish European election. Your thoughts on these ideas would be appreciated.

* FOURTH, and talking of the European elections, I can report that campaign activity is beginning to get going here. The joker in the Swedish pack is a spin-off from the No side in the referendum campaign, the June List (www.junilistan.nu), which is looking to offer a home to moderately Eurosceptical voters who don’t fancy voting for the Left or the Greens. The other parties are irritated that the List’s candidates have been allowed to state their previous party affiliation (“Social Democrat”, “Christian Democrat”, etc) next to their name on the ballot paper; but opinion polls so far have not been desperately promising for the new group.

That could change, of course, if rapid progress is made on the EU constitutional treaty. The prime minister has made clear that, after last year’s fiasco on EMU, he doesn’t want any more referendums on European matters. Nor do the other parties, bar the Left and Greens. The spectacular British about-turn on this question has so far not had much impact on the Swedish debate.

Anyway, I and some colleagues will be writing a shortish report on the Swedish election to the European Parliament. If anyone else is writing something on the elections in other Nordic countries, please think of giving the other members of the list a sneak preview.

Best,

Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (forskarassistent) Department of Political Science, Umeå University (www.pol.umu.se) convenor, PSA Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group

Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se).

Swedish election latest

Dear all,

Good morning from Sweden. Below is a quick résumé of the election result as it stands. Postal votes won't all be counted until Wednesday, so things might change a bit; turnout, for instance, might well creep over 80 per cent.

LEFT PARTY (v) 8.3 per cent (-3.6 from 1998), 30 seats (-13). Disappointment at losing momentum after 1998's great leap forward, though bourgeois bloc kept out of office. Renewal of government-supporting role likely – though Schyman, v's major office-seeker, sounded uncertain about her future last night.

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS (s) 39.9 per cent (+3.5), 144 seats (+13). Extreme satisfaction at surpassing poll predictions, despite looking likely to need Green support again in parliament. First incumbent since 1968 to increase its score. Unexpected recovery of Stockholm's municipal government a sweet bonus.

s + v = 48.2 per cent (-0.2), 174/349 seats (no change)

GREENS (mp) 4.5 per cent (no change), 17 seats (+1). Relief at keeping seats, especially given leadership chaos in spring. Although attempts to stare out s over getting ministerial posts seemed to collapse feebly last week, new leadership otherwise had good campaign.

s + v + mp = 52.7 per cent (-0.2), 191/349 seats (+1)

CENTRE PARTY (c) 6.2 (+1.1), 22 seats (+4). Joy at increasing score for first time since 1973, probably due to "Maud effect"; she was in floods of tears last night. Would she answer a call from Persson about co-operation? "He already has his girlfriend [read: Schyman]."

LIBERALS (fp) 13.3 per cent (+8.6), 48 seats (+31). Sensational result, spectacularly ending four straight losses. Almost certainly a consequence of controversial integration (immigration) policy proposals – a brilliant tactical ploy. But leadership, whose confidence grew visibly in last six weeks, pointed to generally greater "clarity" in its message.

CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS (kd) 9.1 per cent (-2.7), 33 seats (-9). Disappointment at losses – though, as leader pointed out, still party's second-best performance. Poll ratings fell as fp's surged.

MODERATES (m) 15.1 per cent (-7.8), 55 seats (-27). Catastrophe too mild a word. With lots of its votes going to fp, no longer the undisputed top bourgeois party. Lacklustre leadership an obvious problem; by campaign's end, Lundgren was urging voters to support any bourgeois party, and didn't slap down fp and kd bids for bloc's informal prime minister candidacy. Yet the final insult, the loss of Stockholm, sustained despite presence in municipal party of m's one popular figure. Big problems.

c + fp + kd + m = 43.7 per cent (-0.8), 158/349 seats (-1)

In sum, then, it's pretty much as you were in terms of government office and bloc strength. Despite unprecedented co-ordination, the right failed to make headway, though it got its hopes up in the final few weeks. There were big swings, but within the blocs, not between them. Updated results can be found at the Election Authority's website (www.val.se).

Best,

Nick Aylott.
--
Department of Political Science, Umeå University
www.pol.umu.se

Article on the Swedish election

Dear all,

As the Swedish election draws nearer, one of our number, Jennifer Novack
(J.Novack@lse.ac.uk), has written a piece on it for the Economist
Intelligence Unit's ViewsWire service. It's part of the EIU pages' free
content. To see it, go to the EIU website (www.viewswire.com) and click on
Sweden in the list of countries on the left-hand side. I'm sure Jennifer
would welcome any comments.

More generally, English-language news on Scandinavian politics is always
useful for teaching purposes, and the EIU might be a good source. So too
might the The Economist's own website (www.economist.com), particularly the
country briefings, which are packed with basic political and economic
information (these can be found via the left-hand side of the homepage).

Best,

Nick Aylott.