Alva Hedlund: Why Are Politicians Arguing Over Who Can Give Me the Biggest Monthly Allowance?

Why, Alva Hedlund asks, are politicians fighting over who can offer her the biggest monthly allowance? For a first-time voter, the question captures what she sees as a dispiritingly narrow election campaign.

Hedlund writes that political visions appear to have stalled in an unimaginative dream of permanent middle-class life. Reducing the campaign to questions of money feels diminishing, she argues, especially when the issues confronting voters can reach far beyond the size of their wallets.

She recalls sitting with a friend at Trädgården during a heatwave, half-watching a World Cup football match and asking what he planned to vote for. Neither of them felt ready for the task. Still, they quickly agreed that not voting was not an option. They were, she writes, children of Jan Björklund’s school curriculum, shaped by the idea that anyone who does not vote has no right to complain.

Hedlund says that principle may be simple for Swedish citizens concerned about losing credibility in political arguments. For others, however, election results can have consequences that determine the course of their lives.

A letter from Linda Eklund, the Liberals’ lead candidate in Malmö’s municipal election, gives Hedlund another example of campaign language. The letter says Eklund wants more Malmö parents to watch their children graduate with flowers in their hands and pride in their hearts. It also claims that more students have completed school and moved forward with confidence and more open doors under Liberal responsibility, while acknowledging that too many still leave compulsory school without the knowledge they need.

Hedlund compares the letter’s printed handwriting to messages from Jehovah’s Witnesses, while noting that the campaign appeal concerns neither eternal salvation nor a handwritten note. Her criticism focuses on the language and on a political debate she believes has traded broader visions for personal economic promises.