I thought I would give you all some interesting
news about the Swedish elections especially for
those overseas where there is perhaps not so much
media coverage on Sweden.
It appears if there is a leftist/socialist wind
blowing in Sweden again as the election results
gave the Social democrats around 47% of the votes.
It appears as if they will be trying to build a
government without including any other party,
however this is not yet clear. Furthermore, the
left party(former communist party) has gained in
popularity and received around 7% of the votes.
The Greens which were voted out in the election of
1991 got a little over 5% of the votes which means
that they are back in the parliament with 18-20
seats.
event for a number of reasons. One reason being
that the previous election period, headed by a
borgeous govt led to the dismantling of the
Welfare state. Since the welfare sector employed a
large portion of the Swedish female population,
many women have become unemployed. The dismantling
of the Swedish welfare sector has ment a
particular strain on women as they are normally
the ones taking care of children, the old and the
sick when the welfare system does not provide this
service any more.
During the former govt there was severe criticism
against this politic.A network of women in all
sectors of society emerged, and in this network
these problems were discussed. This network
threatened to form a women's party if the
politicians would not listen to them. In the
election campaign it did not appear as if the
women's demands were taken seriously but one
concrete thing came out of it. Some of the parties
decided to give every other seat to a female party
member on their party lists. The social democrats,
the left party and the environmentalist party has
done this. This means that Sweden will have the
highest percentage of female representation in the
government and parliament in the world and in
history.
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the
exit polls show that the ones voting for the Green
party were young women.If we turn to the young
voters we can see a clear leftist,
environmentalist trend which might be an
indication of future politics.
Politicians from the right wing hope claim that
this is an isolated incident and not a general
trend by pointing to the fact that the only
parties opposing European Union membership are the
leftist and the green party. The right claims that
this is why people voted left as it has nothing to
do with ideology.
The EU membership question will be decided in a
referendum in November.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Annica Kronsell
Department of Political Science
University of Lund
Box 52
S-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Phone: +46-46-10 89 44
Fax: +46-46-10 40 06
