More poll joy for Social Democrats

[Gnist]

Mona Sahlin has not changed the direction of the party, and stupidity comes out as soon as her lips aren't sealed. Her programme is that Sweden is "grey" and needs "colourful" immigrants. Voter's disappointment with the current government has very little basis, even if it is bad. For as long as I followed Swedish politics, no government kept their promises as much. So why are voters going back to where they came from politically, instead of moving on?

Gnist



More poll joy for Social Democrats

Published: 7 Jan 08 08:25 CET
Online: The Local - More poll joy for Social Democrats

Support for the Social Democrats, Sweden's leading opposition party, has risen for the third time running in surveys carried out by pollster Skop.

Since the last opinion poll in October, support for Mona Sahlin's party has grown by 1.3 percentage points to 40.4 percent.

The Social Democrats' opposition partners however both lost support for the third poll in succession. The Left Party dropped 0.2 percentage points to 5.6 percent, while the Green Party fell back 0.6 points to 6.2 percent.

The opposition parties' combined results (52.2 percent) give them a commanding lead over the four parties of the centre-right government (42.6 percent).

Of the government parties, only Fredrik Reinfeldt's Moderates saw a rise in support since October, up 1 point to 23.9 percent.

The Christian Democrats remained unchanged at 4.7 percent.

The Centre Party (6.7 percent) shed 1.6 points, a fate shared by the Liberals, down 1.5 points to 7.3 percent.

The Sweden Democrats meanwhile witnessed a surge in support since the last poll, gaining 0.9 points to put them just below the four percent needed for a place in parliament at 3.7 percent.

Skop's poll was based on a December survey of 1,000 potential voters. All changes in the poll are statistically significant, except those for the Centre Party and Liberals.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

[wilpuri]

Interestingly enough, in Finland the Social Democrats have lost support in significant numbers among the 20-30 demographic, while more 'fringe' parties such as the True Finns (conservative-nationalist) and the Left Alliance (socialist) have become more popular among young voters.

[Gnist]

Soc-dems did their poorest election since March 27th 1914 last time around, but they are still the biggest party with 8,8% more than the second biggest party. Most of those who migrated to the liberal alliance in 2006 will probably go back to soc-dems, and the rest will be split up in a wide range. I hope I'm wrong, but that seems more likely than anything else at this point.

Results for the Swedish Riksdag - Wikipedia

Abbreviations:
s = social democrats
fp = people's party (not at all what it sounds like; formed by fringe christians)
m = moderate coalition party (former right wing party)
c = center party (former agricultural union)
v = left wing party (former communists)
sp = socialist party
kd = christian democrats
mp= environmental party ("greens")
nyd= new democracy
sd = sweden democrats (assimilationists)

övr.= other
delt.= participation

What I call the "liberal alliance" was officially named "Alliance for Sweden" and consists of c, kd, m and fp.

[Marulus]

Who is ruling Sweden right now? Some center-right party or coalition?

[Gnist]

Originally Posted by Marulus

Who is ruling Sweden right now? Some center-right party or coalition?

The so called "Alliance for Sweden" (see above), which I characterized as "liberal". But as late as yesterday a member of Centerpartiet (c) criticised the governement's policy for being communist, while Centerpartiet itself is in the Alliance.

[wilpuri]

Btw, its interesting to see who forms a significant part of their electorate.

The Swedish left (the Soc-dems, the Left Party and the Greens) has, surprise surprise, significant support in enriched neighbourhoods. Here are the top ten most immigrant-dense neighbourhoods of Stockholm:

Rinkeby 91,1%
Tensta 86,1%
Husby 80,8%
Skärholmen 73,2%
Akalla 62,6%
Bredäng 61,3%
Rågsved 59,7%
Kista 55,7%
Sätra 52,4%
Vårberg 52,3%

And here, for comparison, is the amount of votes that went to the Swedish left from those neighbourhoods (remember, these are the last elections (2006), in where the Swedish left suffered a defeat).

Rinkeby 87,5%
Tensta 81,1%
Husby 74,2%
Skärholmen 68,4%
Akalla 67,1%
Bredäng 68,6%
Rågsved 71,5%
Kista 57,8%
Sätra 60,8%
Vårberg 63,9%

Source.