Author Topic: Elections in Europe  (Read 165203 times)

Offline Linudden

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1240 on: May 21, 2022, 05:05:38 pm »
Maybe you should no longer comment on Australia and New Zealand seen as you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about and on top of that seem to try and push your far right agenda in the matter. Considering one of one the two parties is a puppet of the Murdoch media this is an astonishingly bad take.

 :duh

 :butt

I'm a libertarian with moderate economic leanings for goodness' sake.

Morrison has been/would still like to be a zero covid psychopath. He can go and fuck himself. I'm glad he lost even though the other side are wankers too and some premiers are even more psyched out than him.

No love for Australia from me. Glad I'm literally at a safe distance and will never need to go there so long as the current crop are in charge. Even Italy seems like a freedom paradise compared to them lot in the South Pacific.

Sorry if that's too frank but then again I'm happy to stay nearly 10 000 miles away so don't worry too much. So just relax and take a deep breath before ranting too much about it. At least I also agree that Morrison is shite so just take the W mate :wave
« Last Edit: May 21, 2022, 05:21:06 pm by Linudden »
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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1241 on: May 21, 2022, 05:14:31 pm »
Maybe you should no longer comment on Australia and New Zealand seen as you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about and on top of that seem to try and push your far right agenda in the matter. Considering one of one the two parties is a puppet of the Murdoch media this is an astonishingly bad take.

Linudden talking overconfidently about politics of a different country than his own?

I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked!

Offline TSC

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1242 on: May 21, 2022, 05:21:19 pm »
:duh

 :butt

I'm a libertarian with moderate economic leanings for goodness' sake.

Morrison has been/would still like to be a zero covid psychopath. He can go and fuck himself. I'm glad he lost even though the other side are wankers too and some premiers are even more psyched out than him.

No love for Australia from me. Glad I'm literally at a safe distance and will never need to go there so long as the current crop are in charge. Even Italy seems like a freedom paradise compared to them lot in the South Pacific.

Sorry if that's too frank but then again I'm happy to stay nearly 10 000 miles away so don't worry too much :wave So just relax and take a deep breath before ranting too much about it mate.

Don’t think Australia will mourn your absence.

Offline Linudden

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1243 on: May 21, 2022, 05:23:30 pm »
Don’t think Australia will mourn your absence.

It's all good. I volunteer to stay away. I don't like air travel too much anyway so would have to be paid to go that far. I think North America is more or less my limit for patience on a plane if I'm honest ;D
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Offline Rosario

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1244 on: May 21, 2022, 05:36:50 pm »
:duh

 :butt

I'm a libertarian with moderate economic leanings for goodness' sake.

Morrison has been/would still like to be a zero covid psychopath. He can go and fuck himself. I'm glad he lost even though the other side are wankers too and some premiers are even more psyched out than him.

No love for Australia from me. Glad I'm literally at a safe distance and will never need to go there so long as the current crop are in charge. Even Italy seems like a freedom paradise compared to them lot in the South Pacific.

Sorry if that's too frank but then again I'm happy to stay nearly 10 000 miles away so don't worry too much. So just relax and take a deep breath before ranting too much about it. At least I also agree that Morrison is shite so just take the W mate :wave

You know Morrison spent the best part of 2 years fighting against zero Covid because that was a decision made by the states backed by the people so he actually couldn’t fight against it too hard without hurting his chances of re-election?

If it was up to him he would’ve had Australia open up mid 2020 and had a free for all like over in the US but thankfully public pressure forced him not to. Don’t worry mate I’m relaxed Morrison is gone and the reds are about to win the league.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2022, 07:56:44 pm by Rosario »

Offline Garrus

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1245 on: May 21, 2022, 05:38:19 pm »
Australia's current target for reducing their net emissions to zero is 2050. A wealthy, sparsely populated nation blessed with natural resources could afford to be a lot more ambitious. A pity that Australian Labour aren't pushing this but at least they won and maybe having to work with Greens could be a decent outcome.

Sad that they're no different from the detention policy but I guess you've got to do what you can to win elections.

Offline Nobby Reserve

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1246 on: June 19, 2022, 09:28:08 pm »
Great to see that Thatcherite twat Macron looks like losing his coalition's parliamentary majority.

Melenchon looking to put together a more centre/leftist coalition.

Talk that Macron's Thatcherite 'reforms' are doomed.

 :thumbup :thumbup
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Offline killer-heels

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1247 on: June 19, 2022, 09:29:22 pm »
Great to see that Thatcherite twat Macron looks like losing his coalition's parliamentary majority.

Melenchon looking to put together a more centre/leftist coalition.

Talk that Macron's Thatcherite 'reforms' are doomed.

 :thumbup :thumbup

Good. Couldnt happen to a bigger c*nt than Macron.

Offline TheShanklyGates

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1248 on: June 20, 2022, 02:22:15 am »
Great to see that Thatcherite twat Macron looks like losing his coalition's parliamentary majority.

Melenchon looking to put together a more centre/leftist coalition.

Talk that Macron's Thatcherite 'reforms' are doomed.

 :thumbup :thumbup



Not sure this is a great victory for the left. Looks like France's march to the right has gathered pace to me.
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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1249 on: June 20, 2022, 02:27:20 am »
He can blame the Scousers for that one :D.

Alarming that the National Front (ignore the rebrand) has jumped from 8 seats to 89, though. The far right's tentacles are well and truly wrapping themselves around the trunk of Western European politics.

Offline Bend It Like Aurelio

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1250 on: June 20, 2022, 05:27:05 am »
Great to see that Thatcherite twat Macron looks like losing his coalition's parliamentary majority.

Melenchon looking to put together a more centre/leftist coalition.

Talk that Macron's Thatcherite 'reforms' are doomed.

 :thumbup :thumbup

Le Pen's the big winner here, despite the fact that Melenchon are in the official opposition.

Don't think a weaker France is in anyone's interest. Not the least for the anti-Brexit coalition in the UK.

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1251 on: June 20, 2022, 08:36:19 am »
Massive victory for Le Pen that; from 8 to 89 seats.

Offline Nobby Reserve

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1252 on: August 26, 2022, 03:47:05 pm »
Looks like the Italians are set to vote in a far-right/neo-fascist coalition.

 :no
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Offline Linudden

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1253 on: August 27, 2022, 09:48:53 pm »
Looks like the Italians are set to vote in a far-right/neo-fascist coalition.

 :no

There's definitely a lot more valid claim about the Fratelli-Lega-Forza Italia coalition being far right than anything our Austro/German coalition here says about their parties. All those three Italian parties are quite nuts.

The Italian left only have themselves to blame for fracturing themselves into dozens of pieces. Not to mention this is part of the lockdown backlash since Italy went on for way too long and way too harsh, which further obliterated what was left of its economy. Ultimately, the combination of the covid doom-mongering and the brutal infighting by the Five Star Movement has been their downfall. Even if three parties are in government, they're the largest party in the country as of the last election and are seen as 'the guys in charge' and get taken down for that. Let alone that they didn't do anything to fix the hospital bed situation. That they had Conte and Di Maio going to civil war inside the party to such a degree that the movement even has split in two is just the icing on the cake. Lega have actually also taken a beating because they've been part of this government for no apparent reason and that means Salvini will lose the chance of a premiership to Meloni by default.

I've heard from a friend that PD is a running joke down there even among leftists because they stand for nothing and don't even pretend to do anything. It's even rumoured that Renzi just used PD to gain power because that's how you get elected in Florence but was right-wing all along. Renzi is basically a neo-liberal now with his new party. Not to mention the Italian left is further right than most Tories on social issues and don't enforce taxation all that much. The interesting part about Meloni is that the first female PM of a country like Italy would be someone way off the deep end to the right. Or that Livorno probably will get a far-right MP. Anyone who knows about Livorno and its far-left roots... well. Yeah. It's just another part of the slippery slope that Italy is on, it's not going in a positive direction no matter who wins that election.

Probably a similar development coming in Spain next year, PSOE and Podemos are nowhere near as strong as they used to be. Basically to put it like this: countries like Italy and Spain shouldn't be energy-dependent on other countries considering how much potential for green energy there is in both places. Solar in both and hydro in Italy. This will always lead to price-gouging from private companies and very angry electorates who flip flop like crazy between various elections. Mandating solar panels on buildings should be at the top of the list in places where the sun shines so much and with such high luminosity. Instead, it's largely priced out of range for consumers to have that and as a result they have to buy very expensive electricity from private operators, previously sourced from Russian gas. Not smart. If the left turned this on its head, they'd win every election down there.

Poorer countries will always have more extreme political swings and radical propositions. Poverty breeds discontent. What the leftist parties need to do in Italy and Spain is to take on the Thatcherite bollocks head-on rather than going along with it. Everything is privatized to the highest bidder in financial black holes in those places and that's why the average person is struggling to get by so much. That the left in southern Europe don't agree with the likes of Labour on immigration is another matter altogether, they just need to try to get efficient government services to people and they'll win elections on their terms.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2022, 10:10:43 pm by Linudden »
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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1254 on: August 28, 2022, 03:28:13 pm »
Cheers for that Linudden.

Italy has been a failed state in terms of its management for years, the kind of proportional representation system that has led to a gridlocked government on various issues. One of the few leverage points the EU possesses to keep Meloni's crew in check, if they take over, is the release (or not) of Covid recovery related funds. Shame that it's come to the point that such people and rhetoric can get voted in.

Offline Linudden

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1255 on: August 28, 2022, 10:35:32 pm »
Cheers for that Linudden.

Italy has been a failed state in terms of its management for years, the kind of proportional representation system that has led to a gridlocked government on various issues. One of the few leverage points the EU possesses to keep Meloni's crew in check, if they take over, is the release (or not) of Covid recovery related funds. Shame that it's come to the point that such people and rhetoric can get voted in.

I've heard tonight from my Italian friend that they get zero unemployment by default even if they have worked before. Then the Five Star Movement introduced something very basic that the far-right coalition will rip up next month. It's simply social darwinism at work. People's families are supposed to be the social safety net but that model is breaking down as fewer jobs are available and people can't afford to have children. Lots of the time, elder couples live on bad retirements for one of the spouses since the wife never worked and lots of the time, that one retirement is supposed to care for unemployed sons and daughters in their 20s and even 30s. Simply put, there are hardly any jobs to apply for in the legal market. Italy is in a very tragic place and it's getting worse. People there are apparently solely voting based on which politicians they despise more. No-one believes anyone will do something about anything. That Italy didn't even get a wakeup call from the Lombardy hospital scenes and started doing something to fix the hospitals is just the symptom of the larger systematic failings.

Right now in late summer, Italy has the same power prices that the worst-case scenario is for Scandinavia in the middle of winter. Everything is falling apart and nothing is done to try and fix it.

Italy now is basically Thatcherism's basement level.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2022, 10:40:30 pm by Linudden »
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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1256 on: September 12, 2022, 06:33:20 am »

Offline killer-heels

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1257 on: September 12, 2022, 06:45:25 am »
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/11/swedish-election-exit-polls-far-right

Sweden getting a right wing government

Sweden has really big issues with immigration so its no wonder they have lurched to the right.

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1258 on: September 12, 2022, 09:37:51 am »
In times of crisis people reach for an alternative, whatever that may be.  Dodgy Dave Cameron made the most of that in 2010 and I'm sure Starmer will do likewise whenever our next GE comes along.

Is Sweden following that pattern or is it just about their high levels of immigration?

Offline killer-heels

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1259 on: September 12, 2022, 09:49:59 am »
In times of crisis people reach for an alternative, whatever that may be.  Dodgy Dave Cameron made the most of that in 2010 and I'm sure Starmer will do likewise whenever our next GE comes along.

Is Sweden following that pattern or is it just about their high levels of immigration?

They have the same issues as every other country regards to cost of living but the high amount of immigration and crime linked to gangs (which has spilled into more public areas) have trumped all that as an issue.

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1260 on: September 12, 2022, 10:02:20 am »
They have the same issues as every other country regards to cost of living but the high amount of immigration and crime linked to gangs (which has spilled into more public areas) have trumped all that as an issue.

Every single country needs to have a proper discussion regarding immigration (pros, cons etc.).  It needs to be de-weaponised from the right.

Offline killer-heels

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1261 on: September 12, 2022, 10:09:37 am »
Every single country needs to have a proper discussion regarding immigration (pros, cons etc.).  It needs to be de-weaponised from the right.

To be honest I am amazed France hasnt fallen into the far rights hands already. France has a huge issue with with.

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1262 on: September 12, 2022, 10:14:51 am »
To be honest I am amazed France hasnt fallen into the far rights hands already. France has a huge issue with with.

It seems many countries do.  It will continue to be weaponised, as long as all the moderates (left and centre parties) continue to ignore it.

Offline reddebs

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1263 on: September 12, 2022, 10:33:10 am »
I think the whole of Europe, behind the public facades of multiculturalism, has a problem with immigrants and it's no longer necessary to hide it.

I agree with Red Soldier but it needs to be more than just a conversation.

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1264 on: September 12, 2022, 11:15:59 am »
Quote
The prospect that the far-right Sweden Democrats, who appeared to take more than 20% of the poll, may for the first time achieve direct influence over government policy marks a seismic shift in a country far better known for its liberal traditions.

The SD emerged from Sweden’s neo-Nazi movement in the mid-1990s and still struggles to shake off accusations of extremism. It was treated as a pariah by other parties, but three years ago, the centre-right Moderate party embraced cooperation with the far right.

The SD has increased its vote at each of the past nine general elections. Its leaders are demanding ministerial office, but the other three parties in the bloc have said they will not invite the party into government itself. However, the SD’s position as the largest party on the right places them in a strong position.

“The SD is currently by far the biggest party in the world with Nazi roots,” said Tobias Hübinette, lecturer in intercultural studies at Karlstad University and a leading anti-racist.

“Even if the party officially condemns its own race ideological roots, this background is today still present in the sense that the SD is still … seeing itself as the only political force that can save the native white Swedish majority population.”

Åkesson told a crowd of cheering supporters on Sunday evening: “Our goal is to sit in government. Our goal is a majority government. It’s looking pretty damn good now.”

The party secretary, Richard Jomshof, told public television SVT he “didn’t believe” other parties would be able to freeze out the Sweden Democrats again and expected to have a strong influence on the country’s politics. “We are so big now … it is clear we should have a spot on parliamentary committees,” he said.

He said the party had “a chance to be an active part of a government that would move politics in a completely different direction”.

At the height of the campaign, the SD billed a metro train decorated in its electoral colours as the “repatriation express”. “Welcome aboard with a one-way ticket. Next stop, Kabul,” tweeted the party’s legal spokesperson, highlighting the SD’s demand to remove non-European immigrants.

The election has revealed Sweden to be a nation deeply ill at ease with immigration, with the SD able to exploit fears over violent crime. Voter concerns such as energy price rises, failing schools and long queues for healthcare were drowned out by a relentless focus on immigration and crime.

The campaign was punctuated by further incidents of gang violence, the prevalence of which during the past five years – and the failure of government and the police to prevent them – has helped the SD to cement support for its central message that immigration is to blame.

Two weeks ago, a woman and her five-year-old child were injured after being caught in crossfire in Eskilstuna, west of Stockholm. In Malmö a week earlier, a 15-year-old boy shot dead a gang leader in a shopping mall. The number of fatal shootings rose sharply to 34 in the first six months of this year, up from 20 in the same period of 2021.

Party leaders on both left and right linked the rise in violent crime with large-scale immigration, which has led to high levels of segregation along ethnic lines in the housing and jobs markets. In the space of a few decades, Sweden has become one of the most multicultural societies in Europe, with more than a third of the population having been born abroad or having a parent who was born abroad. About 30% of children do not have Swedish as their mother tongue, rising to 45% in parts of the cities.

Offline Nobby Reserve

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1265 on: September 12, 2022, 11:22:54 am »
I think the whole of Europe, behind the public facades of multiculturalism, has a problem with immigrants and it's no longer necessary to hide it.

I agree with Red Soldier but it needs to be more than just a conversation.


There's the integration aspect, too.

Only a generation or two ago, people from ethnic backgrounds would seek to assimilate themselves into the countries they/their parents had moved to. Here in the 80's when I was growing up, BAME people would try to Anglicise themselves. You would see, for instance, that in Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi communities, the teenage/young people would be rejecting the religious conservatism of their parents. For whatever reason, there's not only a perception that more recent immigrants don't have that intent to integrate and assimilate, but even many 3rd-generation ethnic people (apologies for the very clumsy phrasing, but I hope you understand what I mean) are identifying themselves with their ancestral heritage more than the country that they (and their parents) were born in.

We now have, in many countries, elements of certain immigrant groups forming gangs and organised crime groups. One widely-reported aspect of the Sweden election is the escalation of gang violence and organised crime amongst immigrant communities.

Again a perception has arisen amongst (can I call them?) indigenous people that the authorities 'go soft' toward these groups, so as not to inflame racial tensions.

That very accusation continues to be levelled at the several incidents of mass child abuse by Pakistani/Bangladeshi men against white girls. The police and authorities ignored the accusations by these girls, and in many instances the thnic background of the scumbags perpetrating the abuse was hushed-up, again to prevent racial tensions.

When this kind of stuff inevitably does become public, the backlash is probably greater than if the authorities had come clean from the off and not tried to brush it all under the carpet. It allows parasites like Yaxley-Lennon and his neo-nazi ilk to whip-up even more hate.
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Offline Linudden

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1266 on: September 12, 2022, 11:49:15 am »
Thing is, the Sweden Democrats in the 2022 guise are neither very right nor extreme in an international context and it's a far cry from the skinhead days 30 years ago. Their entire policy platform is basically that of the Danish and Norwegian Labour parties. Being on 'the right' in Sweden is basically like being a Lib Dem as far as economics go. Above all, this election was essentially a rebellion against high fuel and energy prices from the countryside or basically a referendum on nuclear power. Crime was a big issue as well, but the big rightward shifts were seen in areas where the cost of living crisis has hit the hardest.

The Social Democrats ran a horrible campaign filled with arrogance, no policy proposals and Trump-like statements. The whole idea behind their campaign was 'Putin is bad so we can't change the government since it's a crisis' and 'our opponents are very bad people so vote for us so we can implement their ideas instead because it's better if good people crack down on crime'. The excessive negative campaigning led to the left vote concentrating in their camp but that they pushed rural voters rightwards. That they did this while mimicking almost everything the Sweden Democrats said made their campaign ever more pathetic by the day. Essentially, the Moderate Party (Tory) copied the Sweden Democrats first and then the Social Democrats copied the Moderates. The PM duel on the state TV was particularly embarrassing, since the PM said that she agreed with the opposition leader eight (!) times. In the end, a lot of voters simply chose the original over the pale copy and the end result was quite obvious.

Multiple 'Bolsovers' happened.

To name some:
Avesta, Borlänge, Boxholm, Eda, Fagersta, Filipstad, Finspång, Grums, Gävle, Hallsberg, Haparanda, Hedemora, Karlskoga, Laxå, Ljusdal, Ludvika, Lysekil, Nora, Ockelbo, Skinnskatteberg, Smedjebacken, Storfors, Surahammar, Tierp, Torsby, Vingåker, Ånge and Älvkarleby. In some of those places even I would've laughed if someone said that a near 50/50 split would yield right-wing wins a week ago. Then add a few places which didn't vote right-wing for half a century or more and flipping Dalarna County on top of that. Gävleborg, Örebro County and Värmland almost flipped whereas Blekinge, Sörmland, Västmanland and Östergötland were won for a second consecutive election. Every municipality of Kalmar County voted for the right, which is unheard of considering the interior was part of the industrial belt. In Dalarna, Västmanland and Östergötland the leftist wins were reduced to one municipality apiece. Needless to say, the nuclear municipalities of Oskarshamn and Östhammar swung even more to the right.

In some areas, the left used to win well above 70 % most of the time but lost yesterday. Instead the left almost flipped the wealthy suburb Nacka, won Stockholm by 20 points and landslides in Gothenburg, Malmö and Uppsala. They performed beneath expectations in Linköping and Örebro though, which could prove decisive, not to mention the right winning Västerås and Norrköping with a greater margin than anticipated.

In addition, they lost massive ground in the northern interior with rather pyrrhic wins as their core voters are fleeing. Since the Sweden Democrats don't have the 'rich people' baggage they'll be a lot harder to win back than the Red Wall voters in England. Their leadership didn't go to Eton and speak in a manner that relates to working-class people. Not to mention that a lot of the Social Democrats' new voters in Stockholm are liberal rather than left and are still in play for the more moderate right parties. Plus an islamist party have started to make inroads into their voter base in some areas.

The overall turnout appears to be down as well, likely due to the Social Democrat party leader ranting about not wanting 'Somalitowns'. One senior leftist (!) minister was openly bragging about wanting to ban (!!) 'non-European people' from moving to certain multicultural neighbourhoods to 'maintain an ethnic balance' and was applauded (!!!) by the Prime Minister. Not exactly how to mobilize the Muslim vote for a leftist party now is it...  ::) So the future doesn't look bright for them and they need to come down from their high horse and figure out why they're in a position to lose an election they looked to have in the bag all this time.

As for the electoral count, the only real question by the looks of things is whether it will be 176-173 or 175-174 in parliament - which could have major repercussions down the road. There are 47 k votes between the blocs with each seat being roughly 20 k. In theory, given that the big cities are done counting it's almost worth calling the election but for a shock swing in the expat vote, that normally vote 'Tory'.

The outcome policy-wise then? Well, nuclear power plants will be built and criminals will need to be prepared to get Danish sentences (in effect doing a really long time). The Moderate-Christian Democrat coalition seen in parliament will probably be in government whereas the Liberals and the Sweden Democrats will veto each other from the cabinet but prop the government up to get budgets through. Fundamentally, those two parties actually agree with one another on more things than not, it's just a very different view on globalization and multiculturalism that sets those apart.

That being said, the Liberals agreed on a joint immigration declaration with the other parties a year ago which will restrict it a ton. Even though to a foreigner it might look like a 50-50 split, there's a sizeable majority for parties that want really low levels of immigration (more or less 80 %). The Social Democrats want that as well, it's just that the three small parties (far-left, green and neo-liberal) that propped them up last term disagree so they can't. They might even be quietly relieved with this outcome since it will fall on the right to do the systematic changes the Social Democrats want to make but couldn't do with the company they were forced into by the parliamentary reality. That means they can just point to the status quo if they return in four years time and refuse to undo the changes made.

Finally, it was a big rebuke of the small-party domination in Swedish politics. Never before have three parties gained 70 % of the seats. I think that's a good thing because it makes it a lot easier to get stuff done rather than being shut down by loud 5 % parties.

My prediction right now now? 49.6 % for the right and 48.8 % for the left.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2022, 04:52:33 pm by Linudden »
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Offline killer-heels

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1267 on: September 12, 2022, 12:13:34 pm »
I mean, they began their roots out of neo nazi days. How much have they actually changed?

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1268 on: September 12, 2022, 12:26:31 pm »
I mean, they began their roots out of neo nazi days. How much have they actually changed?


Quote
“The SD is currently by far the biggest party in the world with Nazi roots,” said Tobias Hübinette, lecturer in intercultural studies at Karlstad University and a leading anti-racist.

“Even if the party officially condemns its own race ideological roots, this background is today still present in the sense that the SD is still … seeing itself as the only political force that can save the native white Swedish majority population.”

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1269 on: September 12, 2022, 12:27:47 pm »


Yeah, I mean that sounds pretty extreme. We are hardly in centre right territory.

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1270 on: September 12, 2022, 12:30:18 pm »
Yeah, I mean that sounds pretty extreme. We are hardly in centre right territory.

I would take anything Linnuden says with a huge pinch of salt!

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1271 on: September 12, 2022, 12:37:53 pm »
Thing is, the Sweden Democrats in the 2022 guise are neither very right nor extreme in an international context...
I mean, they began their roots out of neo nazi days. How much have they actually changed?
I suspect what you and Linudden think of as 'neither very right nor extreme' is not the same thing.
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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1272 on: September 12, 2022, 01:05:34 pm »
Linudden thanks very much for the recap.

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1273 on: September 12, 2022, 01:15:31 pm »
Any rise of the far right is worrying of course, but important to keep the results in context.

They were up 3 points (to 21%), the Social Democrats were also up 3 points (to 31%). The two blocs are essentially tied, it's just that the minor parties in the left bloc did marginally worse than the minor parties in the right bloc. It's not like the far right had a stunning clear victory.


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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1274 on: September 12, 2022, 04:24:19 pm »
I mean, they began their roots out of neo nazi days. How much have they actually changed?

Although the Sweden Democrats calmed down a lot after the mid-90's until 2005 it was essentially a completely different party to the one that came after it. From that moment on the party profiled itself as a centrist economic alternative combining welfare statism with closed borders and with assimilation required. Essentially they've tapped into the market that UKIP fished in but a lot more efficiently, mainly because they actually believe in many similar principles that their small-town and rural voters did, whereas Frottage just abandonded ship and never gave a fuck. They're even the third biggest party among people with non-western immigrant backgrounds. Of course those who support them are mainly secular or Christians, but it does tell something. A minority-majority municipality (Södertälje) voted right-wing this and the last election with SD as the largest party in that bloc. If the party was actually far-right that wouldn't have happened.

https://valresultat.svt.se/2022/riksdagsval-0181-sodertalje.html

That's 53.4 vs 44.9 on this occasion.

They're unique in the sense that they do well everywhere outside of large cities. Traditional conservative small-government areas? Check. Agrarian municipalities? Check. Industrial areas? Check. If anything, they underachieved this election due to the external circumstances like Ukraine and covid which broke their momentum to salvage respectable results in larger cities they had a few years ago. Not to mention the PM Magdalena Andersson imitating all of their policies alongside a high approval rating. 25 % would've been attainable in a normal scenario. Having said that, their future looks very bright since they're more popular with young voters than with the population at large. Sweden, opposite of Britain, is actually very right-wing when it comes to people born in the 90s and later and it's those above 50 that keep the elections close, but the other way around. Given that people usually go further right as they go older if this is the young generation now... well.

The PM is a very smart person who runs public finance really well, but she lacks the ability to campaign efficiently and that's what cost them the election this time. It does say a lot though that the Social Democrats and Moderates have just a few minor differences between them in their budgets and somehow the Sweden Democrats squeeze into the middle. There's a wide uniformity on economic issues in Sweden which is a lot more progressive on that front than other countries. There's a wide consensus on what we need to do in order to combine a market economy with a welfare society and the parties in power stick to that norm which is good for us.

There's a reason that the Moderates, Christian Democrats and the Liberals voluntarily form coalitions with them nowadays and it is because the party has changed and matured a lot.

Finally, quoting the nationwide joke that is Tobias Hübinette? I don't even know where to begin on that one. He thinks all white people are inherently racist so he can get to fuck. Anyway, I don't really blame Red-Soldier. Not knowing a foreign language it's hard to get the full picture on a specific source, but just be a bit careful when talking confidently on politics in a country whose language you don't know is all :wave

As for what Nobby said, I'm seeing more and more where people who share a different mother tongue but are born here speak Swedish to one another. A lot of people here are assimilating, it's those who aren't who catch the ire of the general public. Very few Sweden Democrat voters would have an issue over an East Asian, brown or black person who speaks the local accent and believes in gender equality being considered an equal part of the community. In fact, if those live in small towns, a lot of them actually vote for the Sweden Democrats themselves.

'Libertine' obviously missed the point that the Social Democrats ran a right-wing esque campaign in order to try to fend off the increasing right-wing sentiment. They're not a socially progressive party anymore, they can solely claim that on economics. Even that is under doubt considering they governed with lower tax rates than the centre-right government from 2006-14 did while in collaboration with the two liberal parties last term. The only reason they do media granstanding on the Sweden Democrats is because fundamentally they vie for a lot of the same voters and they know the left of the party would never accept openly working with them. So the middle ground is to adopt their policies while relentlessly bashing them in the press. Like the saying goes 'empty bins make the loudest noise', that fits them perfectly ;D The only three 'refugees welcome' parties remaining were smaller combined than the Sweden Democrats were alone.

Here's the election map anyway:



One municipality (Karlskoga) is subject to change since the right are leading by I think about 15 votes with a few percent left to count. All the others look to be set. The inland part in the middle south used to be all-red for so many elections, even in those they lost. Now it's a constant blue sea instead. Nyköping didn't flip because it's in the commuter belt and fuel prices aren't a factor here because of the train. Even so, it's closed up more than the national average either way. From 51-46 to 50-48. There's still a lot of pensioners in the rural areas who used to work in factories that keeps the countryside here close enough to tilt the municipality red but not for long. In the next election it will probably be right at the national average going by recent trends. Red + 7 in 2010, +6 in 2014*, +5 in 2018 and +3 in 2022.

* includes a party that drew a lot of votes but missed the entry threshold.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2022, 05:17:36 pm by Linudden »
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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1275 on: September 12, 2022, 06:32:37 pm »
Thanks linudden, that’s really great.  I had two questions: first is, is there anything special about the northern part of the country?  That’s a massive area of red, is it just the sparesely-populated rural area you were talking about?  Even so the southern countryside is blue (at least I assume that’s countryside.
Given that people usually go further right as they go older if this is the young generation now... well.
The second thing is I think we all basically misunderstand that idea, and the truth is that most people get more small-c conservative as they age.  And because left-wing cultural ideas have been dominant so long, this means people aren’t turning right-wing because they prefer the values they’ve grown up with and these are now broadly speaking progressive ones.  I know the drift rightwards isn’t happening in Britain anymore, that’s where I’m getting this idea from (though it’s also a bit more complicated than that).  Does that sound right in Sweden?  We always think of you as ten years in advance of everyone else on progressive social ideas, but these are exactly the ones that seem to be being rejected now.  It was interesting to read Knausgaard or Zlatan a few years back and begin to understand that in fact at least some of the cooler kids held that stuff in contempt, when our basic impression was always that you were all into it.

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1276 on: September 12, 2022, 07:16:21 pm »
Thanks linudden, that’s really great.  I had two questions: first is, is there anything special about the northern part of the country?  That’s a massive area of red, is it just the sparesely-populated rural area you were talking about?  Even so the southern countryside is blue (at least I assume that’s countryside.The second thing is I think we all basically misunderstand that idea, and the truth is that most people get more small-c conservative as they age.  And because left-wing cultural ideas have been dominant so long, this means people aren’t turning right-wing because they prefer the values they’ve grown up with and these are now broadly speaking progressive ones.  I know the drift rightwards isn’t happening in Britain anymore, that’s where I’m getting this idea from (though it’s also a bit more complicated than that).  Does that sound right in Sweden?  We always think of you as ten years in advance of everyone else on progressive social ideas, but these are exactly the ones that seem to be being rejected now.  It was interesting to read Knausgaard or Zlatan a few years back and begin to understand that in fact at least some of the cooler kids held that stuff in contempt, when our basic impression was always that you were all into it.

The northern part is a bit complicated but it mainly has to do with being extremely poor back in the days before central heating was a thing and being tremendously served by successive Social Democratic governments during the 1930-1968 timeframe which was dominated by our greatest prime ministers of Per-Albin Hansson and Tage Erlander. The thing the Social Democrats don't like to talk about is that those two are the political idols of the Sweden Democratic leader Jimmie Åkesson and their values are actually rather similar. That's also why I would more suggest that the right-wing resurgence in Sweden is a revival of old social democratic ideas that fell short towards a neo-liberal view of the world for many decades.

Parts of the north, namely the penultimate region to the north Västerbotten was still a swing region into the 1970s as a result of religious puritans residing there and voting right-wing by default. Mainly housewives tired of their husbands' excessive drinking truth to be told. Alcoholism was a severe problem up there similar to in many other hostile climates. Once that generation of oldtimers born in the 1800s passed away and the female workforce became universal, all of the north shifted heavily to the left. The northernmost region of Norrbotten made the shift already in the 1930s though. This was due to the heavy industry that dominated the area which attracted workers from the south to the docks, the Kiruna and Gällivare iron mines and production lines. This difference in world view between the more academic and agrarian Västerbotten and the rugged and industrial Norrbotten has made the gradual rightward shift recently gone much further in the far north. This is especially seen in the ethnic (assimilated) Finnish areas on the border, where that no-nonsense approach works really well. Västerbotten is more known for potatoes, cheese and bread than for heavy industry, even though Skelleftehamn, Boliden and Holmsund are historical bastions of that. Not to the scale of the arctic lands though.

Now instead, the north is drifting rightwards precisely because of that - for a long time the Social Democrats were the safe conservative choice for people up there. At this moment, my grandmother's generation in the north are fading out and that opens the door to movement between parties. The north is still much like the median Sweden 20 years ago. Not much crime, homogenous and an electrical power surplus. They're starting to look towards the south and see the social alienation prevalent here and thus are turning their backs on the left, slowly but surely. If I made a movement map for 2018-2022, the inland north would be some of the darkest blue and even the progressive coastal towns are heading in that direction as a direct result of what they see on the news. The small blue dot in the northeast had one of the highest vote shares for the left back in 2010. What happened in Haparanda was that thousands of asylum seekers took the route over Finland to enter Sweden via Haparanda and the small town basically flipped out over the slightest multiculturalism and has veered sharply right since.

Fundamentally, the right-wing tendencies among the youth is a rejection of the older generation and above all (paradoxically) a rejection of neo-liberalism. People here are generally in favour of school and care choice but not of open borders and infamously Swedes outside of Stockholm aren't fond of strangers. I see them remaining in the right-wing camp like the same kind of base the Social Democrats used to have, only being Sweden Democrats instead moving forward. Back in 2010 there was a huge stigma about voting for them, but it's no big deal now and that's a lot due to the youth enthusiasm both from ethnic and assimilated Swedes for more conservative safety-first solutions.

Were we ever that liberal though (?) is the obvious question I get from your post and that's a bit complicated. Big cities and politicians were, for sure, but their feelings were seldom enthusiastically matched outside of the metros where the prevailing wisdom was that 'immigrants who work, speak Swedish and treat their women well can stay' but the others have always received a very frosty reception. It's just gotten to the point where people say it out loud. For a long time, many Swedes assumed the liberal right of the 90s and 00s wanted to 'sort the integration issue' so we can 'take care of those we have here so they become Swedish' because they were never in power. What changed everything about the overton window was when Fredrik Reinfeldt's Moderate government actually had a way more liberal immigration policy than the left. It shook my generation and those a decade above me to the core, but the intensive stigma around criticism of the emerging no-go zones saw a backlash with the later millennials... until 2015. Since then the floodgates have opened now and being a man beneath 35 voting right-wing in a small town in Sweden is essentially about as special as humans being bipedal.

Mainly, this has triggered the Social Democrats into shifting their ideological perspective. They were actually always the conservative, hesitant party in many ways. Olof Palme used to denounce the European Communities as basically a conspiracy to take away Swedish sovereignity and neutrality used to be the party religion. To top it off in 1989 Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson signed the infamous 'Lucia declaration' effectively banning asylum immigration due to 'the runaway problems' the Social Democrats saw of the system. Two years later the sky fell though. Upon the anti-immigration wave surfed a rather unserious party 'New Democracy' into parliament and their provocative manners triggered the new liberal government into offering asylum to any person from the Balkans fleeing the war there. That was hugely unpopular at the time, even though the Yugoslavs eventually integrated very well. The Social Democratic leadership then got cornered by the progressives to their left and the liberals to the right holding the balance of power, so they reluctantly agreed to maintain a liberal asylum policy even after their 1994 economic collapse backlash landslide victory. That the economic collapse was triggered by the Social Democrats getting egged on by the opposition to have the most liberal stock trade regulations in Europe while they were in government is the most ironious thing of them all.

The 1994 election was a rapid turning point in Swedish politics. Because of the leftist landslide but no outright majority for the Social Democrats, they got held hostage by the Left and Greens who represented a very small percentage of the population at the time. With the liberal right being in disarray for being blamed for the housing crash, the country went through twelve years of rapid social and economic change. The finances were ran in an excellent manner by PM Göran Persson and I'll always respect him for that but he was naïve when it came to the ulterior influence neo-liberal infiltrators had on his party. As a result, the party besides him started sounding more and more radical as he actually ran a really fiscally responsible government. That opened up the overton window for the arch-neo liberal Reinfeldt to really seal the deal when he dragged Persson down in a 2006 stalemate discontent election.

Everything we see in Sweden now has to be understood from that lense. It's an old-school social democratic revival using the right-wing parties as vehicles for change masked as a 'far-right revolt' by people who don't know any better. The welfare society is not open for negotiation here after all. People just want to be left alone and when the neo-liberals didn't leave them to be, they revolt. The opposition to that becomes an unholy alliance between marxists, greenies, the updated Social Democrats and the free-market Centre Party. The only thing they agree on? That they hate the conservatism sweeping the country. Their solutions? Four different and separate altogether. That's why it's a big relief they seem to have lost. Not necessarily for the Social Democrats being super-bad, but their three coalition partners being at loggerheads with what the population want to see happening.

So essentially, people misunderstand me a lot. I have the views I have because I despise misogyny and sexism. When a lot of people who have come to Sweden attest those views, it baffles me and gets me mad. The barbaric honour killing of Fadime Sahindal by her own dad in Uppsala back in 2002 (RIP) shaped my views on these topics quite a bit. Her dad was mad she had a Swedish boyfriend and tried to kill him as well. I was just a child back then and I just didn't get why the politicians didn't do anything about that stuff. I also despise neo-liberalism and the damage to community and trust it does when jobs are offshored for the profit of the shareholders. Those two rather leftist ideals have shaped me into who I am, but sadly some people can't connect the dots on it. Even though I despise religion, I have quite a conserving mindset but I also want equality and fairness and for people who enter another country to have a chance to become part of the culture and assimilating into their new home - although nobody should ride for free in that quest. It seems like a lot of the second and third-generation immigrants of Södertälje are in complete agreement with me on that.

That's my take anyway, hope it was worth the read :wave
« Last Edit: September 12, 2022, 09:01:22 pm by Linudden »
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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1277 on: September 12, 2022, 09:10:05 pm »
No, I get it.  Thanks very much for taking the time, it’s fascinating.  A lot of what you say, and Nobby a few posts up, seems to me a particular problem with basically the very idea of progress, in that for some reason it’s always vulnerable to confusing policies for principles, so that (to take your example) the limited approval for immigration that you describe somehow mutates into a principle in favour of open borders, or unrestricted migration, or multiculturalism - which are not only unpopular and, worse, often contrary to the actual basic fundamental public value that achieved that approval in the first place, and finally worst of all end up in a kind of oikophobia that ends up driving away the groups that the progressive believers turn out to have been using as a cuckoo’s nest, and then you end up with the red wall debacle here.  You could say the same about identity politics, or trade unionism before it (the latter being far more of a core value in fairness).  [edit: scratch that for trade unionism, that’s not necessarily a progressive value at all as I see it, though even it ended up taking over in the early 80s]

That said, the process you describe is not unlike what I’ve been expecting to happen here, but conspicuously hasn’t yet.  I don’t think we have a ‘right-wing’ younger generation emerging here, I don’t know why.  Maybe my first instinct was right and you’re ten years ahead of us.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2022, 09:14:46 pm by Iska »

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1278 on: September 14, 2022, 10:43:50 pm »
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62908902

Swedish PM resigns as right wing parties triumph

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Re: Elections in Europe
« Reply #1279 on: September 15, 2022, 11:54:40 am »
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62908902

Swedish PM resigns as right wing parties triumph

The Italian Far-Right in line to win their election on the 25th as well, which is a particularly frightening prospect for European unity, and the anti-Putin front.