Letter: Mohamsson is a ‘Liberal Party member’, but not a liberal

Håkan Norén wants Sweden’s Liberals to receive no more than 3.9 percent in the election. In a response published by Dagens Nyheter, he says the country’s genuine liberals are on the “right” side of the blue-brown political divide, referring to the divide between liberal and left-wing forces and the nationalist right.

Norén challenges Sivert Aronsson’s account of liberal history. Aronsson had cited liberal Prime Minister Nils Edén, whose government helped lay the foundations for universal and equal suffrage in 1921. Norén says this account overlooks the role of Social Democrat Hjalmar Branting, who served as finance minister and whose party had fought alongside the liberals for voting reform since the late 19th century.

The coalition formed after the 1917 election was, Norén writes, a natural arrangement at the time. The Liberal Coalition Party, as the Liberals were then known, clearly belonged to the left. The government remained in office until 1920, when the voting-rights issue had been settled.

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The real liberals can be found on the ‘right’ side of the blue-brown line in this election.

Norén says he has never belonged to a political party, though he would probably identify as a left-liberal. He grew up in a Folkpartiet household, with a father who was a small-business owner and member of a free church. His grandfather helped establish De frisinnade in Uppsala, an organization that became part of Folkpartiet in 1934.

He says Branting, Edén, his father and his grandfather would be turning in their graves if they saw someone claiming to lead the Liberals embrace a leader from the far right. Norén argues that the party’s representatives had promised before the previous election to act as a counterweight to a right-wing government dependent on the Sweden Democrats. Instead, he says, they soon defended proposals that clearly conflicted with liberal ideas. He concludes by calling for a clear distinction between “liberal party members” and liberals.

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Liberalism in Sweden and the Liberals as a party cannot be reduced to a simple tactical vote here or there.