Alvesta’s Christian Democrats Have Already Chosen the Center: “Go for It!”

In Alvesta, the political center is not a theory. It is a governing arrangement that has been serving coffee and sponge cake for years.

The small Småland municipality is run by the Social Democrats, Centre Party and Christian Democrats, the same combination that many politicians are now discussing as a possible model at the national level. Jessica Karlsson, Alvesta’s Christian Democrat and the local figure compared with party leader Ebba Busch, has a simple message for her national leader: “Go for it! Look toward the center.”

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Go for it! Look toward the center.

Social Democrat Per Ribacke has chaired Alvesta’s municipal executive board since 2014. During his first two terms, he says, the municipality became “Sweden’s most quarrelsome municipality.” Little got done. A proposal to build a multi-purpose arena repeatedly failed because the Social Democrats governed in a minority. After another defeat just before the 2022 election, Ribacke saw an alternative: invite the Christian Democrats into the governing coalition.

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Sweden’s most quarrelsome municipality

Karlsson says she had heard Ribacke was abrasive and raised the issue with him directly. Instead, she found him to be “like a little teddy bear.” Centre Party representative Thomas Haraldsson completes the governing trio. All three say personal chemistry has been essential, along with an agreement that defines what they will pursue and what they will leave aside.

That arrangement requires compromise. Ribacke would like to raise taxes to invest more in municipal services, but has set that aside. Haraldsson would like to guarantee preschools across the municipality, yet says focusing on differences gets them nowhere. The coalition’s agreement gives each party a priority that the other two promise to support. For the Christian Democrats, that priority was school health services, which led to student health guarantees, student meetings and health consultations.

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like a little teddy bear

The parties also share public responsibility equally, taking turns presenting decisions even when those decisions do not reflect their own main political priorities. The Social Democrats hold 14 seats, the Centre Party nine and the Christian Democrats three. Their shared budget, however, belongs to all three.

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If you focus on the differences, you get nowhere.