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The abyss is opening beneath the Social Democrats
🇸🇪 Sweden /Elections & Politics

The abyss is opening beneath the Social Democrats

From Svenska Dagbladet · () Swedish

Translated from Swedish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Opinion Documents & data Context piece
  • A TV4/Novus poll shows Sweden’s Social Democrats losing more than four percentage points in two weeks, leaving the party with just over 25% support.
  • The party is losing voters to all other parliamentary parties, with the largest flows going to the Centre Party, Sweden Democrats, Moderates and Liberals.
  • The editorial argues that Magdalena Andersson has offered vague promises without explaining how she would govern or with whom.

The Social Democrats are running toward the edge of a cliff, Peter Wennblad argues, and Wednesday’s polling figures suggest the ground may already be giving way beneath them.

A TV4/Novus poll put the party at just over 25% of the electorate after a loss of more than four percentage points in two weeks. Novus said the party was losing support to every other party in the Riksdag. The strongest voter flows were heading rightward, to the Centre Party, Sweden Democrats, Moderates and Liberals.

The decline looks sharper against the party’s recent figures. Social Democrats support stood at almost 37% in Novus polling just over a year ago, while slightly more than 30% voted for the party in the 2022 election. If Wednesday’s numbers translated into an election result, the editorial says Andersson would try to form a government as the party’s weakest and least successful leader in its history.

The criticism focuses on what Wennblad sees as a gap between the party’s rhetoric and its plans. Social Democrats have campaigned on promises of a new direction and on bringing Sweden together, but without saying how those goals would be achieved or which parties would join them.

A recent party message told voters they could trust Andersson to put the country in order and needed only to vote Social Democrat on Sept. 13. The editorial calls that message deeply dismissive of voters’ intelligence. It also points to Andersson’s SVT interview, where she sighed and rolled her eyes at questions about who would pay a preparedness tax to expand defense spending, and about her earlier claim that the Tidö government threatened Swedish democracy and was taking the country toward totalitarianism. The questions, Wennblad writes, received no clear answers. Andersson has said only that she would work with those who want her to become prime minister, leaving policy to negotiations.

Sweden, you can trust that Magdalena Andersson will put this country in order. The only thing you need to do is vote for the Social Democrats on September 13

— Swedish Social Democratic PartyThe party used the statement in social media as part of its election campaign.
About this summary

Originally published by Svenska Dagbladet in Swedish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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