Center party leader Annie Lööf said today that she regrets the Center party congress’s decision to work towards making circumcision illegal except when necessary for medical reasons. At press conferences today, Lööf stressed that it was not the position favored by party leadership, and that freedom of religion is really (really!) important to the Center party.
Since the current Social Democratic-led government is beholden to the Center party for its continued existence, what the Center party decides, at its congress or otherwise, matters. Perhaps decisions like these are like the Swedish expression barnsjukdomar, which means something like growing pains as the body matures, that then blow over as they grow up. The Center party has support numbers that allows them to flex some muscle – but that makes their tantrums all the more problematic.
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.
Little foretastes of the coming national budget continue to land on the proverbial palate. Like it or not. Besides the Green Party’s “free year” and the Left Party’s bank tax, the Center Party has apparently finagled a rural tax reduction (). Almost everyone living in Norrland, Dalarna, parts of Värmland and parts of Dalsland will be able to write a bit off of their taxes because they live in a low population area, or, as they’re known in official-speak “support area A and B” (stödområden).
“It’s all about being fair, and reducing the tax difference between city and country” said Annie Lööf, Center Party leader. She also motivated the tax reduction by noting that country residents often pay some of the highest local municipality taxes but generally receive fewer services (read: a health clinic or dentist in the area, or a local unemployment office) in return.
About 830,000 people are eligible for the rebate, to the tune of about 140 kronor a month, per person. On a national level, the reduced tax is expected to cost about 2.2 billion kronor ().
Although it works out to about 1650 kronor a year, there won’t be much to it if the gas tax is raised, as is expected to happen. Living in the country means needing a vehicle, especially when the state’s services are few and far between. The tax reduction might then cover the cost of filling the tank a time or two. Only voters can decide if the trade off is a fair one.
“The biggest problems in society today are both the shootings and the explosions.”
There aren’t many that would disagree with Minister for Home Affairs Mikael Damberg on this. Two women died this week, one shot at point blank range while out walking – and carrying her baby – and the other from shots fired from the street while she was in her home. These two outrageous incidents are only the latest. But the fact that the victims this week are women, and that they weren’t killed at the hands of a male acquaintance (like in the vast majority of cases), made for a barrage of tweets from the country’s politicians.
“Complete darkness,” chirped Center Party leader Annie Lööf, “criminals have lost all respect for human life.” “Only lame and disgusting monsters go after a new mother” tweeted a shocked, just shocked, Minister for Justice and Migration Morgan Johansson: “They will be hunted to the end of the world if needed.” And the Swedish Prime Minister was not late in chiming in. “This is an incomprehensibly evil action, that makes me and the whole country disgusted. This has no place in our society. We will steadfastly conquer these murderers.” It’s possible these statements of extreme indignation sounded better in Swedish, but they didn’t, really.
Since these are only the latest events in a rising level of violent crime, there have been a slew of suggestions for countering it over the last few years. “More police!” has been a recurring refrain, but this takes time and good will. Police in Sweden have traditionally been seen as only slightly better than old gum scraped off the bottom of your shoe. This attitude should perhaps be changed first, although there is no sign of this from the government.
Two steps that appear more likely to be implemented in the nearer future is a reduction in the number of hoops a police department must hop through to put up a surveillance camera, and an initiative to require registration of all new SIM card buyers. True to form, neither of these “quickest” measures are likely to be in place before well after the new year. If things continue as they’ve been going, 23 more people won’t live to see these measures enacted.
