Conservative bloc could oust Social Democrat Andersson from government
The morning of the election, Swedes woke up yesterday to news of a multiple rape of a 20-year-old girl in the center of Sundsvall, in a pedestrian area that is normally very busy every Saturday night. It is a form of violence that Swedes have had to get used to in recent years, such as shootings between drug gangs with a migrant background.
This reality, so far removed from the perfect Swedish welfare state, along with the Russian threat, have undoubtedly weighed on the election result. The far-right party of the Swedish Democrats (SD) has won the surprise of the centre-right Moderate Party to become the second most voted Swedish political formation.
The firm hand against crime and the priority of defense policy have benefited its leader, Jimmie Åkesson, who is also relatively skeptical of the European Union, having won 20.5% of the vote. While waiting for the recount to progress, Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson, who in her first term took the historic step of applying for Sweden’s accession to NATO and won 29% of the vote. lead to the government not even forming a bloc that brings together the entire Swedish left.
At the end of this edition, this hypothetical coalition could gain 173 seats, while the conservative bloc and the far right could garner 176 seats. Despite this, the big loser of the day is the Moderate Party, which with only 16% of the vote loses political relevance and is no longer the benchmark for the conservative vote.
“The queues at some polling stations are still long and some have had to stay open after polling stations close, so counting may take a little longer,” said Anna Nyqvist, permanent secretary of the Authority last night. knowing the exit polls and having decided that all voters who were already in line at 8pm could cast their vote. On these fragile percentages, the public television SVRT calculated a government in the hands of the left bloc at the end of the polls, with Andersson managing to involve the Greens, the center and the left party, despite the obvious difficulties.
Centrist leader Annie Lööf has, for the first time this campaign, opened up to forming a government with the Social Democrats, but only if the Left Party is not also included, which is made ugly by her rejection of NATO and its ties to related Kurdish movements with terrorism. For her part, the former communist Nooshi Dadgostar has shown that she does not want to sit down to talk to Lööf. However, the recount gave an advantage as it advanced into the conservative bloc, in which there would also be very large cracks when it came to forming a government.
Conservatives and Christian Democrats have broken for the first time in this election campaign the cordon sanitaire that has excluded SD from any government for the past two decades and have shown a willingness to rule with Åkesson, opening the door to an unprecedented and hypothetical coalition that will also has major pitfalls. The greatest tension would undoubtedly arise between the hard wing of the SD and the Liberals, who ruled with the Social Democrats just a year ago. At the last stage of the campaign, in one of the last acts, the Liberal leader refused to travel by bus with the rest of the formations, organizing a transfer only to avoid meeting in the same vehicle with members of the Swedish Democrats.
Regardless of whether one bloc or the other has a small advantage when the count is over, the Scandinavian country is likely to face a lengthy government formation, such as after the 2018 elections. Andersson said last night that she is ready to work with anyone. other parties except the Swedish Democrats are working and was ‘very disappointed’ that ‘other parties have decided otherwise’. As for what will most directly affect the rest of Europe, one of the major differences between the two blocs is energy policy.
The left-wing bloc is committed to renewables in the medium term, while the opposition defends the construction of new nuclear reactors with generous government subsidies. Sweden ended the nuclear moratorium in 2010, but provided that the total number of reactors did not exceed the ten then active and no new ones were built. Since then, energy companies have closed four reactors for lack of profitability and the opposition accuses the government of betting on “less stable” energy such as wind power.
His first steps into politics were with the centre-right Moderate Party, after studying political science at Lund University. But his work as a web designer for the British Medical Journal Aktiv company, co-founded by the SD general secretary, drew him into the radical formation. His impeccable haircut, glasses and perfect shave whiten his work of transforming a fringe anti-foreigner movement (“Keep Sewden Sweidish”) into an alternative government. He entered parliament in 2010 with 5.7%, after a ubiquitous campaign that took its toll. In 2014, he admitted to being addicted to online gambling and took six months off to detox. He once stated that Muslims are “the greatest foreign threat since World War II”.
Source: La Verdad
I am an experienced and passionate journalist with a strong track record in news website reporting. I specialize in technology coverage, breaking stories on the latest developments and trends from around the world. Working for Today Times Live has given me the opportunity to write thought-provoking pieces that have caught the attention of many readers.
