4 ms·

The top ministers in charge of this scandal are impeached by the opposition. Our prime minister Stefan Löven is having a press conference tomorrow at 10am (+1gm

The top ministers in charge of this scandal are impeached by the opposition. Our prime minister Stefan Löven is having a press conference tomorrow at 10am (+1gmt) and possibly the entire party will resign to hand over power to the Moderates (right wing) because of this.

johansch 9y ago
I guess the most likely scenario is that the current PM tomorrow at 10am will announce that the current goverment has resigned and that it's then upon the Speaker of the Riksdag/Parliament to try to form a new government that will meet the acceptance of the parliament. One note: the "right-wing" alliance of four parties who was behind this impeachment notice (I should use more quotes, they really are centrist as a group) parties earlier today announced that they would not seek to form an independent government with the help of Sverigedemokraterna, the anti-immigration and rightwing-ish party currently polling at around 20-25%. Instead they would seek to form a new government together with the social democratic party they just claimed was not trustworthy. Yes, it's odd. (On the whole though I'm happy that we can have a political crisis like this without the country falling apart. Everyone is behaving perfectly orderly.)
- Yetanfou 9y ago
  It is more than odd and it will only serve to steer more voters to the Sweden Democrats (SD). For those not totally in tune with Swedish politics, the current government (S - social democrats - and MP - Miljöpartiet, 'environmental party') more or less stumbled right out of the starting blocks as the opposition voted down their budget. This would normally have ended with a resignation followed by a new formation attempt or new elections but this did not happen, the reason being the 'threat' of SD getting in a position of power. At that moment SD had the support of around 13% of those Swedish voters who actually turned up to vote. The opposition - which had just voted down the budget - now supported S and MP staying in power, enacting the budget proposed by the opposition. This became known as the 'decemberöverenskommelse' (December agreement). Of course the ruling parties - S and MP, both left-wing - did not try to implement the budget as the opposition intended, they more or less went their own way. Already marred by a few scandals - e.g. the forced resignation of the minister for housing (MP) when his rather tight connections to the Erdogan-regime in Turkey, his mingling with the 'Grey Wolves' [1] (a Turkish ultra-nationalist organisation) and his connections to the Muslim Brotherhood became clear even to those who tried their best not to notice - the government stumbled along without any clear plan or direction. While they produce a lot of hollow rhetoric about their 'ethic values' (the Swedish concept of "värdegrund", [2]) and boast about being the "first feminist government" they have not acted decisively on real issues cropping up in the country, often going so far as to deny the issues. This has led to comparisons with the infamous Iraqi minister for Information, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf [3] who was known for stating things as he wanted them to be instead of the way they were, even when confronted with irrefutable evidence. All this served to push more and more people towards SD, the social stigma of being associated with this party notwithstanding. If the "opposition" - quotes around the word as it is no longer clear whether the parties of the "alliance" can be considered to oppose the current government as they did support its rule under the December agreement - does go along with S and possibly MP (which by now has lost enough support to end up under the 4% threshold) they will lose even more voters to SD. In the latest poll by Sentio the combined support for the current government parties was 26.2% while SD got 26.8%, in other words there is more support for SD in Sweden than for the coalition of S and MP. The trend has been for support for SD to roughly double every four years (the election period in Sweden), from 3% to 6% to 13% to now 26%. It is unlikely for this trend to hold but it is certainly possible for them to end up with about a third of the votes in the country. Disenfranchising these voters will have a disastrous effect on the trust in politics and politicians in Sweden, a trust which is already at bottom level. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4rdegrund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4rdegrund [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Sweden Democrats (SD) For those not following the rich drama that is Swedish politics: "Sweden Democrats or Swedish Democrats (Swedish: Sverigedemokraterna, SD) is a nationalist political party in Sweden that was founded in 1988. The party describes itself as social conservative with a nationalist foundation, however the party has been described as far-right, right-wing populist, national-conservative, and anti-immigration. The party had its roots in Swedish fascism and was a part of the white supremacy movement in the late-1980s; initially, it was characterized by right-wing extremism and activism. Among the founding party officials were several people that had formerly expressed strong support for the ideology of Nazism. SD's logo from the 1990s was a version of the torch used by the UK National Front, until it was changed to an Anemone hepatica flower in 2006 (Swedish: blåsippa)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats
    - Yetanfou 9y ago
      Sweden as a country has a history with extremism, 'Nordic' nationalism and national-socialism, this includes nearly all parties from all sides. The social democrats (S) were in cahoots with the nazi-regime in Germany in the second world war and agreed with parts of their ideology. That this started long before before the war is clear when looking at e.g. the founding date of the Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology by a social democrat and a farmers union leader in 1922 [1]. It was on a proposal from Sweden and Switzerland that nazi-Germany started stamping passports with a red "J" to indicate that the carrier was considered to be Jewish, the stated reason being that this made it easier to refuse those people access to those countries. These nationalist and extremist tendencies did not die with the end of Nazism either. The social democrats also have a murky past when it comes to relations with e.g. the DDR (German Democratic Republic, i.e. eastern-Germany) and other communist regimes. With the rise of Olof Palme and his followers the social democrats, and with that Sweden turned away from Nordic nationalism and instead went the diametrically opposite direction - another example of the Swedish tendency to go for extremes. Palme was impressed by what he considered to be the "success" of the DDR and spoke in praise of their "successes" without any mention of the way they treated those who did not follow the party line. He also admired Fidel Castro's Cuba and other similar countries. This fascination with political extremes continues to this day, an example of which is the left-wing "Researchgruppen" (research group). This is a left-wing NGO intelligence service which proudly considers itself to be "the Swedish Stasi" [2]. Like the original Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, the east-German intelligence service which kept records on millions of people and had informants spread throughout the population) they keep a database of people with 'dissenting' political views, most of the contents of which comes from burglary. This "research group" works together with the left-wing magazine "Expo" which had and has several prominent social democrats in their leadership. In the second world war Sweden used the motto "en svensk tiger" (which means both "a Swedish tiger" and "a swede keeps silent") to remind the populace to secrecy. This term can equally well be applied to the attitude within the social democratic party and for that matter the communist/'left' party which has a history of its own worth revealing. Swedish social democrats like to see themselves as shining beacons of solidarity and openness. They'd do well to do some research into their past to try to avoid past mistakes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statens_institut_f%C3%B6r_rasbiologi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statens_institut_f%C3%B6r_rasb... [2] https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/sites/default/files/archiveimages/tweet.jpg https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/sites/default/files/archiveima... [*] https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/nyhet/granskare-som-inte-tal-en-granskning-14461 https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/nyhet/granskare-som-inte-tal-e... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_svensk_tiger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_svensk_tiger
etiam 9y ago
Literally handing over power to the conservative block is hardly on the table. As one (probably unlikely) alternative the whole government might be dissolved, but that would pass the task of forming a new one back to the parliament. Some domestic commentary on the options (poorly) translated by Google: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.svt.se%2Fnyheter%2Finrikes%2Fhar-ar-lofvens-alternativ&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

johansch 9y ago

I guess the most likely scenario is that the current PM tomorrow at 10am will announce that the current goverment has resigned and that it's then upon the Speaker of the Riksdag/Parliament to try to form a new government that will meet the acceptance of the parliament. One note: the "right-wing" alliance of four parties who was behind this impeachment notice (I should use more quotes, they really are centrist as a group) parties earlier today announced that they would not seek to form an independent government with the help of Sverigedemokraterna, the anti-immigration and rightwing-ish party currently polling at around 20-25%. Instead they would seek to form a new government together with the social democratic party they just claimed was not trustworthy. Yes, it's odd. (On the whole though I'm happy that we can have a political crisis like this without the country falling apart. Everyone is behaving perfectly orderly.)

Yetanfou 9y ago
It is more than odd and it will only serve to steer more voters to the Sweden Democrats (SD). For those not totally in tune with Swedish politics, the current government (S - social democrats - and MP - Miljöpartiet, 'environmental party') more or less stumbled right out of the starting blocks as the opposition voted down their budget. This would normally have ended with a resignation followed by a new formation attempt or new elections but this did not happen, the reason being the 'threat' of SD getting in a position of power. At that moment SD had the support of around 13% of those Swedish voters who actually turned up to vote. The opposition - which had just voted down the budget - now supported S and MP staying in power, enacting the budget proposed by the opposition. This became known as the 'decemberöverenskommelse' (December agreement). Of course the ruling parties - S and MP, both left-wing - did not try to implement the budget as the opposition intended, they more or less went their own way. Already marred by a few scandals - e.g. the forced resignation of the minister for housing (MP) when his rather tight connections to the Erdogan-regime in Turkey, his mingling with the 'Grey Wolves' [1] (a Turkish ultra-nationalist organisation) and his connections to the Muslim Brotherhood became clear even to those who tried their best not to notice - the government stumbled along without any clear plan or direction. While they produce a lot of hollow rhetoric about their 'ethic values' (the Swedish concept of "värdegrund", [2]) and boast about being the "first feminist government" they have not acted decisively on real issues cropping up in the country, often going so far as to deny the issues. This has led to comparisons with the infamous Iraqi minister for Information, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf [3] who was known for stating things as he wanted them to be instead of the way they were, even when confronted with irrefutable evidence. All this served to push more and more people towards SD, the social stigma of being associated with this party notwithstanding. If the "opposition" - quotes around the word as it is no longer clear whether the parties of the "alliance" can be considered to oppose the current government as they did support its rule under the December agreement - does go along with S and possibly MP (which by now has lost enough support to end up under the 4% threshold) they will lose even more voters to SD. In the latest poll by Sentio the combined support for the current government parties was 26.2% while SD got 26.8%, in other words there is more support for SD in Sweden than for the coalition of S and MP. The trend has been for support for SD to roughly double every four years (the election period in Sweden), from 3% to 6% to 13% to now 26%. It is unlikely for this trend to hold but it is certainly possible for them to end up with about a third of the votes in the country. Disenfranchising these voters will have a disastrous effect on the trust in politics and politicians in Sweden, a trust which is already at bottom level. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_(organization) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4rdegrund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4rdegrund [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Sweden Democrats (SD) For those not following the rich drama that is Swedish politics: "Sweden Democrats or Swedish Democrats (Swedish: Sverigedemokraterna, SD) is a nationalist political party in Sweden that was founded in 1988. The party describes itself as social conservative with a nationalist foundation, however the party has been described as far-right, right-wing populist, national-conservative, and anti-immigration. The party had its roots in Swedish fascism and was a part of the white supremacy movement in the late-1980s; initially, it was characterized by right-wing extremism and activism. Among the founding party officials were several people that had formerly expressed strong support for the ideology of Nazism. SD's logo from the 1990s was a version of the torch used by the UK National Front, until it was changed to an Anemone hepatica flower in 2006 (Swedish: blåsippa)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats
  - Yetanfou 9y ago
    Sweden as a country has a history with extremism, 'Nordic' nationalism and national-socialism, this includes nearly all parties from all sides. The social democrats (S) were in cahoots with the nazi-regime in Germany in the second world war and agreed with parts of their ideology. That this started long before before the war is clear when looking at e.g. the founding date of the Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology by a social democrat and a farmers union leader in 1922 [1]. It was on a proposal from Sweden and Switzerland that nazi-Germany started stamping passports with a red "J" to indicate that the carrier was considered to be Jewish, the stated reason being that this made it easier to refuse those people access to those countries. These nationalist and extremist tendencies did not die with the end of Nazism either. The social democrats also have a murky past when it comes to relations with e.g. the DDR (German Democratic Republic, i.e. eastern-Germany) and other communist regimes. With the rise of Olof Palme and his followers the social democrats, and with that Sweden turned away from Nordic nationalism and instead went the diametrically opposite direction - another example of the Swedish tendency to go for extremes. Palme was impressed by what he considered to be the "success" of the DDR and spoke in praise of their "successes" without any mention of the way they treated those who did not follow the party line. He also admired Fidel Castro's Cuba and other similar countries. This fascination with political extremes continues to this day, an example of which is the left-wing "Researchgruppen" (research group). This is a left-wing NGO intelligence service which proudly considers itself to be "the Swedish Stasi" [2]. Like the original Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, the east-German intelligence service which kept records on millions of people and had informants spread throughout the population) they keep a database of people with 'dissenting' political views, most of the contents of which comes from burglary. This "research group" works together with the left-wing magazine "Expo" which had and has several prominent social democrats in their leadership. In the second world war Sweden used the motto "en svensk tiger" (which means both "a Swedish tiger" and "a swede keeps silent") to remind the populace to secrecy. This term can equally well be applied to the attitude within the social democratic party and for that matter the communist/'left' party which has a history of its own worth revealing. Swedish social democrats like to see themselves as shining beacons of solidarity and openness. They'd do well to do some research into their past to try to avoid past mistakes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statens_institut_f%C3%B6r_rasbiologi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statens_institut_f%C3%B6r_rasb... [2] https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/sites/default/files/archiveimages/tweet.jpg https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/sites/default/files/archiveima... [*] https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/nyhet/granskare-som-inte-tal-en-granskning-14461 https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/nyhet/granskare-som-inte-tal-e... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_svensk_tiger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_svensk_tiger

etiam 9y ago

Literally handing over power to the conservative block is hardly on the table. As one (probably unlikely) alternative the whole government might be dissolved, but that would pass the task of forming a new one back to the parliament. Some domestic commentary on the options (poorly) translated by Google: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.svt.se%2Fnyheter%2Finrikes%2Fhar-ar-lofvens-alternativ&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...