Do not reduce the Liberals to a question of tactical voting

A liberal vote is never wasted, Sivert Aronsson writes, even as much of the discussion about Sweden’s Liberals centers on tactical voting and whether a ballot for the party would be lost.

Aronsson acknowledges that the Liberals will probably be needed if a continued Tidö government is to become reality. But he argues that reducing the party to a number in a parliamentary seat calculation is both historically ignorant and wrong, especially when liberalism is under attack.

The article traces a series of reforms to liberal politicians and ideas. Liberal Prime Minister Nils Edén led the government that laid the foundation for universal and equal suffrage in 1921. Liberals also fought for the public school system introduced in 1842, based on the belief that freedom requires knowledge and the ability to shape one’s own life.

During the 19th century, liberals pushed through freedom of enterprise and dismantled older systems of guild and privilege. The changes expanded people’s ability to choose their occupations and livelihoods. The article also credits liberal Karl Staaff with proposing the national pension, introduced in 1913, and identifies the 1979 ban on corporal punishment and the law supporting certain people with disabilities as liberal freedom reforms.

Aronsson says the Liberals have further proposals to extend that tradition. Their parliamentary importance is real, he writes, but their role cannot be reduced to providing support votes. The party is needed because it remains a guarantor in the ongoing struggle for individual freedoms and rights.