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Centre-Right Wins In Sweden
Sweden's centre-right coalition has defeated the ruling Social Democratic party in what has been the countries narrowest (and toughest-fought) election for decades.
With nearly all the results in, it looks like the centre-right alliance led by Fredrik Reinfeld has scraped a win with 48.1 percent of votes, compared to prime minister's Goran Persson's 46.2. Reinfeld, who has a touch of the Cameron-Blairs about him, will be Sweden's next PM; Persson plans to resign as leader of the left-wing Social Democrats.
The Social Democrats have been in power since 1994.
This is hardly the "lurch to the right" or the "end of the Swedish dream" foreign newspapers like the Independent and the Times are claiming: It was a narrow win, and on all the evidence, the alliance has everything to prove.
They were careful not to present their campaign as a rightwards tilt, but rather an adjustment of Sweden's centrist ethos to 21st century realities. The swingeing tax cuts promised during the last election, which spooked many Swedes who feared for public services, have been revised downwards: There will be tax cuts for low-paid workers, but Sweden is unlikely to become a low-tax nation anytime soon.
One of the major issues contributing to the alliance win was Sweden's very generous benefits system. Payments to unemployed workers are high by the standards of many European countries, and the alliance plans moderate cuts to long-term benefits: From 80 percent of previous salary to 65 percent.
More interestingly, they propose to revise long-term invalidity benefits. Persson's Social Democrats put Swedish unemployment at around 6 percent, but observers suggest that when workers on long-term sick leave are counted, it is closer to 16 percent. Add the workers on government schemes and The Guardian reports "real" Swedish unemployment could be a staggering 20 percent. Worse, Eurostat puts youth unemployment at 25 percent.
Of course, not everyone on sick leave is a skiver, and moreover Sweden is not the only western nation to fiddle its unemployment figures by ruling out job schemes and invalids who might otherwise be working. But Sweden is one of the healthiest counties in the world - and it has the world's highest level of sick leave.
Numerous interviewees complained about paying for people "who don't want to work" in the build-up to the election, but this didn't so much signal an outbreak of Anglo-Saxon individualism as disappointment that some fellow citizens were failing to fulfil their obligations under Sweden's social contract.
Free market writer Johan Norberg said in an interview that Sweden's welfare state "was built on specific preconditions: wealth, a strong work ethic, a sense of trust in a homogenous society, and an aversion to living on welfare. All of which made it possible to create a strong social security system...(but) The collapse of the initial preconditions has meant that attitudes have changed to the point that people are no longer sure what is right and what is wrong."
There is little evidence that the Swedish have voted for upheaval: Rather, an acceptance that their much-admired social model needs a correction if it is to survive. Boredom with the ruling party also contributed to the alliance win: The Social Democrats have held power for an astonishing 79 of the last 89 years.
With such a record, the Social Democrats can law a fair claim to being Sweden's "natural party of government." Most in the party figure that they'll be back in power sooner or later.
Apart from fine-tuning the social model, the biggest challenge facing the new government is to ensure that future elections in Sweden become more uncertain and more of a fair fight: For this they'll need ideas. Thankfully, in Scandinavia ideas are rarely in short supply.
