Is Andersson ready for the political ordeal?

Sweden's final election week is approaching, and the political scene looks increasingly unlike the carefully controlled television debates of 1998. Back then, party leaders spoke one at a time in parliament's first-chamber hall, with moderator Jarl Alfredius policing replies and counting every speaker's allotted seconds.

The comparison has become more than a television memory. Watching Göran Persson discuss the class society in which he grew up, the article sees echoes of the 1998 election, when the Social Democrats lost 30 seats. The Left Party gained 21 and the Christian Democrats 27.

The current danger for the Social Democrats is not confined to one side of the political spectrum. The party appears to be losing voters to the Left Party and the Greens, while also facing losses to the Centre Party and possibly the Christian Democrats. Four smaller parties now seem capable of becoming almost medium-sized.

If the latest polling figures, including results of 25.8 and 27.2, are reflected on election day, Magdalena Andersson's time as leader would reasonably be over, the article argues. Even improved figures would leave the party facing serious difficulties.

The Social Democrats' governing strategy rests on two assumptions: that lost voters would move only to nearby parties on the left, making them easier to count in a future government, and that the party would enter coalition talks with greater confidence and room to maneuver. That now appears unlikely. In 1998, Göran Persson declared, "we are staying in office," but remaining in power required the party's first organized budget agreement with the Left Party and the Greens. The question now is whether Andersson's party is ready for a similar ordeal, including sharing government offices with two or three other parties and deciding which promises, beyond the waiting period, it is willing to abandon.

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we are staying in office