pic: centerpartiet.se
The Center party’s congress began today in Karlstad, and the comments in the papers appear to be mixed. Göran Eriksson, political analyst at Svenska Dagbladet, writes that although it goes well for the Center party, the support for the four parties that together make up the united front of government is still near an all time low.
What’s also got to pinch is that the whole point behind the Center party letting the Social Democrats hold on to power was to continue to freeze out the Sweden Democrats. And yet, the Sweden Democrats are only getting stronger and more established. So that didn’t work (SVDEriksson).
What did work for the Center party was getting a whole lot of sway over the government’s policy. The Social Democrats are having to do things that they are seriously unhappy about, in particular the elimination of the extra wealth tax, but also looking over the holy grail of LAS, and cutting back on the Swedish Public Employment Service (arbetsförmedlingen). LAS, the law on employment protection (or, lagen om anställningsskydd) has been around in some form since 1974, and formed part of the very apex of dreams for a perfect society. LAS today, even in its slightly watered down form, still makes it extremely difficult to fire someone from their job. This has good sides and bad sides of course, but the Center party made it clear that their support was contingent upon allowing more exceptions to the “last in first out” employment rule. That this hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean that the Center party is going to let it slide.
Anyway, Göran Eriksson wonders, if by their success, the Center party is losing votes for the Social Democrats – in which case, if these voters go over the Sweden Democrats – Center is contributing to the decreasing popularity of the government they went out on a limb to support. Eriksson, however, seems to be just taking it to the extreme, because it’s fun to be extreme. Voters that leave the Social Democrats because of more liberal Center politics aren’t that likely to head farther right.
The other main thing that came out of the congress’ opening shots was a jab at the former alliance parties, saying they were basically spineless for walking out on the talks on combating gang violence. Lööf said, that if parties were serious about ending shootings and violent deaths they would scrape up the courage to remain at the negotiating table and “make the decisions that need to be made.” The Center party, of course, had just that courage, and are open for continued cooperation – “building a new security for everyone” (). For some people it’s called being an enabler, but others can call it courage. What you see depends on where you stand.
The smart thing to do is not, however, to react to crowd-pleasing opening speeches (guilty as charged), but to wait and see what the summary statements have in the way of real politics. The congress has three days to go – stay tuned.