Yeah, I know. Time passing by very fast many times and here I am trying to catch up. Well, at least I can sleep during nights again and it feels as if I might have got about an hour plus, in front of the computer each day. Perhaps I can try to compensate the delay although with a little longer section this time, about Swedish politics.
When watching the news today I came to think about the issue and felt that perhaps it would be good to go over some points concerning that topic. Many tend to believe that Swedes are rather well educated. When entering politics lots of people here feels suddenly very, very lost. In my opinion that´s true. Swedes seems to a great extent to suffer from the self centered worldview that is to a lot extent experienced through Google at their phones. This is giving lots of charismatic leaders space to sell easily sold points built on low quality facts to their own parties, which in turn causing lots of confusing among Swedes that no longer follow that what really is happening in the political chamber during daytime.
As of now the all so stable Swedish governance system has experienced one crisis after another where many voters have felt driven over owed to too many collaborations between political parties partly not voted for and too much foul play by some parties. One of those hot spots was the former governments´ action to bypass the bureaucratic system for starting the wolf hunt, which has been a very, very sour spot for continued trust in the system.
Sweden has for as long as I can remember had a number of stable parties represented in the parliament. Others come and go, struggling to keep enough mandates. They still are: the Left party; Green party; Social democratic party; Centre party; Liberal party; Christian democrats; Moderate party; and the addition of the: Sweden democrats, recent years. The order more or less represents their left/right winged positions in relations to others with the extremes on each side.
These parties are readily splitting themselves into two groups with the breaking point between the Social democrats and the Center party, by the name Alliance since 2006 at the right side and a less pronounced name for the left winged ones.
Before mentioning how much Sweden has changed from 2006 to 2017 I should also mention that many here support this new societal direction for Sweden while others don’t. This with the very individual oriented mindset has created an identity crisis for what sort of a society Sweden should represent internationally.
So! From a situation where everybody seemed to know exactly which parties to vote for and what to expect, to the position where most people wonder what´s going on…
Prior to the 2006 election many were displeased with the Social democrats, being very strong in their political position. When I begun my military service the same year lots of the young people cheered when the Moderates (at the time the most extreme right wing party) was elected and together with the three other parties proclaimed the so called Alliance. One year later when we were done, not that many were that happy anymore. Even outside of the military when I came back to the real world many young people were displeased for their vote at this very extreme party.
Had the promises about a new gentler political agenda just been empty words? Lots of sick people that got their subsidies revoked, lots of money being transferred from international aid, not much financial help to small companies after all. How could this be, many of these young people wondered? Everything that this guy (Reinfeldt) said sounded so good! He seemed to be on top o things!
This was the starting point of a development still going on where many Swedish people realized that our system had become very untrustworthy or even in some issues like the wolf hunt, corrupt. Except for the latter part, I would say that nothing than the voters interest to take responsibility for their freedom to vote, had changed. Swedes have for many years made lots of fun of US voters that tend to believe any smear campaign toward the other political field. Now it seems as many Swedish people independent of age are in the same position as many young ones; they have become ignorant. Shouldn´t the parties stand for what they have promised?
Regrettably as a Swede I actually think that common knowledge in Sweden has fallen to such a question. With a rampant accommodation crisis since people with no subsidies are forced into big cities for work, lessened taxes to public health care and social protection systems many Swedish people are living in the world they have created for themselves. Many stand for this development proudly though.
Of course many are still looking for an escape goat. Of course it must be the politics as such that has gotten so rotten, right?! So now many are protesting by supporting the so called Swedish Democrats. At least they are going to punish all the immigrants… right? Do you think that most people voting for that party know that they are running an ever more right winged political agenda than the Moderates concerning even Swedes?
The fault is always someone else’s when it comes to politics. Even among voters.
/Erik