svensk politik Archives • Page 4 of 10 • SwedeInternational

3 Oct. – Torell tragedy court outcome

“The violence used was not manifestly unjustifiable.”

With these words, SvD reports, the Stockholm county court decided that the three police officers charged in the Eric Torell case (see this blog post) were not guilty. Two officers had been charged with misconduct, one for shooting after Eric Torell had allegedly already started turning away, and the other for the way in which the response was handled. The third officer, whose bullet was the one which allegedly killed Eric Torell, had been charged with involuntary manslaughter. The case centered on how the police understood the situation, and if their actions were motivated. The prosecutor argued in court that the police officers ought to have stopped to see what effect their shooting had had after the first 23 bullets had been fired, before firing the two others, of which one killed Eric Torell.

The court decided that it was not sufficiently determined in what order the shots were fired, what exactly Eric Torell’s movements were in the inner courtyard where he was shot and what his movements had been when he was shot. The court also determined that the sequence of events on that tragic night were not as the prosecutor had presented: “It is not reasonable to ask that the police stop and check the effect of their shooting in the manner the prosecutor contended.” The court also denied the request for compensation (skadestånd).

The court’s decision was not unanimous: one of the three lay judges (nämdemän) said that the violence used against Eric Torell was “clearly indefensible. It is obvious that Eric didn’t fire a single shot. With that in mind, it is indefensible that two more shots were fired, when Eric had turned his back to the police, without finding out what impact their intensive fire had already had” (DNEricTorell). It was also obvious that the police panicked, wrote the lay judge, in that only one of the total 25 bullets fired hit Eric Torell in the front.

Eric Torell’s mother, Katarina Söderberg, said afterwards that the result didn’t change anything. “Eric’s not coming back. The outcome was pretty expected. When we were following the case it felt like it was going to be this way” (SvdEricTorrell).

DN’s commentator described it as unlikely that the case will be appealed (DNEricTorell).

On a side note: As with other court cases at this level, judgement is rendered by three lay judges (nämdemän) and one lawyer-judge (juristdomare). Even if being a lay judge is not a political position, they are sponsored for the position by a local political party. They are not required to be a member of that political party to be nominated, but if someone is interested in being a lay judge they must apply to a party to be sponsored. If accepted, they are given a course on jurisprudence, and are expected to drop their private political views when judging a case.

2 Oct. – boring, perhaps, but important

Things come up. Dentist appointments, laundry, you have to take your pet to the vet, all of these things happen. They happen to parliament members too: Even when there’s a proposition being put to vote, sometimes a member of parliament can’t make it (even though it’s their job, for which they’re paid a lot of money, and for which they recently gave themselves a hefty raise in 2016).

Similar to the British parliament, the Swedish parliament has a system called vote equalisation – kvittningssystemet – which means that if a parliament member is absent from a vote, another party’s parliament member’s vote isn’t counted. This way, it is thought, the population’s preference expressed in the last election – represented by the number of parliament seats each party gets – is still properly represented: The parties still have the same weight when voting, relative to each other, even though a member of one of the parties (or heck, many members, even all of them) took the day off.

Sometimes, if how individual members vote is particularly important to one party or another, they can request (in advance) that the vote equalisation system not apply for that vote. One reason for doing this, is that the equalisation system creates a way for parliament members to express their personal opinions and avoid voting on an issue where they disagree with how their party is going to vote. If they’re not there, then they personally didn’t vote for, or against, something (just their party did). If another party sees this as likely to happen, for example, they can ask for the equalisation system to be adjourned for that vote.

One example of this was back in 2015. The Social Democratic party, in power then as now, scheduled a vote on requiring ID checks for people coming in to Sweden on trains, buses and ferries. Many Green party members were very opposed to this, but, they were also members of the government which was proposing it. What to do? One solution is to be sick that day. Or maybe their child is sick that day. Then, the thought goes, they haven’t really voted.

Seeing this opportunity to highlight the divisions in the Green party, and possibly the lameness of taking a powder for the day, the alliance parties (at that time consisting of the Moderate, Center, Liberal and Christian Democratic parties) asked for the vote equalisation system to not apply. This way, the thought went, the Green party members couldn’t be absent. They’d be put on the spot, and made to show their true colors. So awkward.

How did it end? All parliament members had to show up for the vote, doctor’s appointment or not. The Green party members who disagreed with their party still had to show up and vote. The government’s proposal passed, and no member of parliament died because they had to vote that day. What they did have to do, was decide to whom they had greater loyalty – their ideals or the party. So awkward. But also important.

Here’s the thing though. This system worked great (well, that depends on your view) when there were basically two blocks. If a vote on one side was away, a vote on the other side was taken away – tit for tat. The government has always had an opposition. But now, the previous center-right block, the previous alliance, is split. If a Center party member is out for the day, from where do the other votes get taken? Plus, and this is huge, where do the Sweden Democrats and their 17% of seats in parliament go? They aren’t a part of any block, and because of this, haven’t even been a part of the vote equalisation system at all.

In 2018, Anders Ygeman explained it like this: “Several times, they have voted one way in committee and another way in parliament. Sometimes, they’ve voted first for their own proposition, and then for another party’s. I have a hard time seeing how they can be a part of the vote equalisation system.” Jimmy Åkesson, The Sweden Democrats’ party leader, countered, saying that everyone basically knows how the parties are going to vote before the final vote is taken, so equaling isn’t a problem.

It wasn’t solved then, and it isn’t really solved now. Because there are no longer two distinct blocks, there have been some just slightly unusual votes because the vote equalisation system hasn’t worked. In one case, SvD writes, an Center party member was going to be absent so a Social Democratic vote was taken out. But for issues covered by the January Agreement, Center and Social Democrats vote the same way, they aren’t in opposition. For that vote, one side lost two votes while the opposition wasn’t affected at all. The vote result is skewed. Not so democratic.

On issues where the vote isn’t close, the system can survive even if the results don’t exactly reflect party representation. There’s one vote coming up in November, though – the budget – where every vote counts. The seven parties that are currently part of the vote equalisation system are discussing how to make it work. For reasons that seem good to someone, somewhere, the Sweden Democrats’ existence is still being ignored.

The vote equalisation system is supposed to make parliament decisions more democratic, but recent election results and the fraying of the two-block representation are making the system undemocratic. One result may be that presence at voting will be mandatory at all times – sickness, sniffly child, laundry or awkwardness be as they may.

1 Oct. – the government reshuffles

Two new ministers were appointed in the Löfven government today: one oldie and one newbie. Ardelan Shekarabi takes over as Minister for Social Security (better known here as socialförsäkringsminister) from his previous post as minister of public administration, and a new name for many of us, Lena Micko, has been given Shekarabi’s old job.

Shekarabi made headlines recently with a facebook post saying that Sweden’s migration policy needed to be sharpened up, by quite a bit (see this post). Many observers wondered if it was a play for the position of party leader in the near future. Maybe it paid off, or, he’s being punished for his attention seeking: The Minister for Social Security is a much (much) more visible post, responsible for, oh, little things like health care, elder care, taking care of disabled people and children, and the general health and welfare of society.

Shekarabi has previously publicly shook his fist at the practices of and advertisements for the gambling industry in Sweden, which fall under the purview of the social security department. Perhaps he was then already preparing for this position. He’s not saying. But his facebook post, his efforts to reign in gambling that garnered a lot of air time, and of course his eye-catching bow ties all lead to visibility. His new position will only increase it.

The other new appointment is Lena Micko who will take over as Minister for Public Administration – a position which is almost as exciting as it sounds. Micko comes lately from the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting, SKL) where she was board member and second vice chair. More importantly, she’s a long term, card carrying social democratic party member.

According to Göran Eriksson at SvD, Micko has long experience of working at the municipal level, and knows how they work and what they want. She is supposed to be of the practical sort, and of the more right-leaning bent – similar to the Liberal and Center parties that were actually once part of the right-leaning alliance but who now are supporting cast members in the Löfven government. Micko and the Center and Liberal parties might get along like a house on fire. There’s going to be an even more unhappy left flank if so, but though they’ve expressed some dismay over a few things, they haven’t caused any real trouble for the rest of the social democratic party.

Micko is sure to fight for more money to the municipalities via the national cost equalisation system (kostnadsutjämningssystemet), discussed in this blog. Another change that might soon come from her appointment is less directed government grants to municipalities. Directed grants more often need to be applied for and are supposed to be used for specific purposes. They also require more administration, read: time and money. If grants are more general they’re easier and can be used how the municipalities see fit. It could be good to remember that directed grants were at one time part of the general grant – they were changed to directed grants for a reason. It might be a good idea to find out why (and fix it) before switching back.

In all, these appointments could be exciting. Or at least interesting. And blog food. There will be plays to the political right and plays to the political left. So far, it must be said that the Social Democratic party has handled the differences without breaking apart in public. It’s impressive, or scary internal control.

29 sep. – sorry, sort of

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.

28 sep. – Center finds the limits of its tolerance

Everyone knows that religion plus politics is a area where only angels dare to tread. And yet, the Center party at its congress today decided to do just that: it will formally and officially work towards making circumcision illegal unless medically necessary.

Circumcision is a religious obligation in two of the dominant world religions, Judaism and Islam. It’s also a widespread practice throughout the western world, and even a hospital union in Beijing (with 50 other hospitals as union members) decided only this April that they too will “popularize” circumcision at all its hospitals as a way to prevent HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (Chinadaily.com).

The Center party has injected itself into this practice to protest the “insult” to a male infant’s integrity. Speakers for the proposal argued that there were aspects to the issue that outweigh freedom of religious expression. In fact, said the Center party’s vice chair Anders W. Jonsson, “the debate wasn’t about religion at all, it took into account a children’s rights perspective and an integrity perspective.”

Though the Center party might say it isn’t about religion, there are a whole lot of others that say it is. Mohamed Temsamani, chairman for the United Islamic Associations of Sweden, stated the the Center party decision limits freedom of religion. Further, “Muslims and Jews,” he said, “aren’t going to stop circumcising their boys. The risk is that people will be forced to do it away from prying eyes in an unsafe manner” reported Expressen. “If this were to go through” said Aron Verständig, chairman of the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, “it would mean the end of being able to live as a Muslim or a Jew in Sweden” (aftonbladet.se).

Previously, only the Sweden Democrats and the Left party have been opposed to circumcision being legal. Now the Center party is joining their ranks.

27 sep. – no school news is good news

The Swedish public school is in the news today. Then again, when is the Swedish public school not in the news?

Today’s news on the school front is threefold: school news from the Center party congress; school news on the curriculum front; and a computer malfunction that is currently causing hundreds upon hundreds of school computers to crash.

A blog at this same location yesterday, on the ongoing Center party congress, promised updates – so here’s an update. A motion to allow uncertified teachers to give school students a formal grade at the completion of a course lost. Not by much. The vote for allowing this was lost only because the congress was split on the issue and they tossed a coin to decide.

The Center party leadership was for allowing uncertified teachers to give out grades because, they argued, there aren’t enough certified teachers around. And the work uncertified teachers do should be shown official appreciation. Plus, they would only be allowed to do it if the school principal was ok with it.

On the other hand, people who were against the motion argued that it would depreciate the quality of school education even more, it would be insulting to teachers who actually put in all the work to get a degree, and would even jeopardize the trustworthiness of a grade given in this manner.

When the motion went to vote, the results were an even 245 for, and 245 against – hence the need for a coin toss. For the DN article, click here.

In a second bit of news, although this did come out a couple days ago, there’s a suggestion from Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) to stop educating kids on ancient Rome and Greece because there just isn’t time in the school year. In the Swedish school, they argue, history begins after year 1700.

In Sweden’s defense, there is a huge uproar about this, and it isn’t likely to get pushed through. This time.

Finally, school computers across the country are dying, DN reports. It started last Wednesday, when the first reports of laptop death were circulated. Since then, 750 computers have reportedly been hit, and more are expected.

The problem is a faulty drive routine that causes computer failure when restarted. The company behind the drive, Fujitsu, is working the weekend (we assume) to fix the problem. New USB drives are being distributed, but there’s no fixed date for the problem’s eradication.

There just isn’t a lot of good school news out there. Sorry.

26 sep. – party! (congress)

“locally produced politics”
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.

25 sep. – Christian Democrats take a powder

The Christian Democratic party struck another nail in the Alliance coffin today when it

One: said it would oppose the elimination of the extra wealth tax (värnskatt), a suggestion put forward, and pushed through in the 2020 budget, by KD’s former fellow alliance parties, the Center and Liberal parties, and even its current friend the Moderate party, and
Two: said it wouldn’t bother writing up a shadow budget together with the Moderate party.

Not liking the elimination of the extra wealth tax is pretty common. After all, it gives a huge tax break to the people who least need a tax break. It shouldn’t be forgotten, however, that the tax was supposed to be temporary, and, it was based on a crisis in the Swedish economy that has since been more than cleared up. The extra wealth tax has no legitimacy because the factors for which it was set up to help out with no longer exist. By all means, tax wealthy people because they’re wealthy if that seems fair to people, but at least be honest about it.

Right now, the extra wealth tax goes straight into the ginormous tax pot that the ruling parties can use as they will, without saying anything more specific. The Christian Democrats are saying no to its elimination because they – like no one else, they say – would use the money exclusively for health and welfare.

This would be great if the Christian Democrats had any say whatsoever in where the governments spends your tax money, but they don’t. They’re saying it to to look good, but it in fact what they’re saying has all the value of a selfie. It’s likely also a jab at the Center and Liberal parties for cooperating with the Social Democrats and Green parties. Here the Christian Democrats are saying “look at these awful center-left parties that would give a tax break to rich people – we certainly wouldn’t” when they certainly would have, if they had won the election.

In more Christian Democratic news (reminder, they have a whopping 7% of the popular vote, but we’ll headline them here anyway) they’re backing out of writing a shadow budget with the Moderate party because there isn’t a chance it will win: “…because it’s hard to get [our budget] through, it isn’t meaningful to do it” Christian Democratic party leader Ebba Busch Thor explains ().

She has a point, in that there isn’t a chance a budget by the Moderate and Christian Democratic parties would pass, but she’s missing the point that by not creating a budget along with the Moderate party, she’s not even showing up. Voters are given no thoughtful alternative to the Social Democratic and Green party budget, and can just as well go back to bed. Unless they come out with their own budget, which they might well do in the next while, one can wonder if the party is making itself deserving of the mandate it won and the power it desires.

24 sep. – Moderate party still moderately popular

The latest shows that the Moderate party is back at the level it was last October, before the alliance fell apart. The recent numbers show them having a 19% support rating, here tied with the Sweden Democrats (only about a week ago, another poll showed the Sweden Democrats at 20.2% – but that was then). The Social Democrats came in at 26%, and the Center and Left parties tied for a distant 3rd at 9% each. In last place, tied at 5%, are the Liberal and Green parties. The question asked was, “if the election was today, who would you vote for?”.

This seems to be the new normal. 26% is pretty much a new low for the Social Democrats, but they’re still the party most people are going to. Analysts at DN/Ipsos remark that SD, M and KD (at 7%) are gaining and losing voters mostly to each other, and Sabuni’s non-lift for the Liberal party is becoming only clearer. The Moderate party’s 19% is up, but only from a pretty low level previously.

If anyone was looking for a bump, or a dip, from the right’s trip to Tel Aviv, the non-agreement on fighting gang violence, the bank tax, gas tax or tax rebate for pensioners, the free year, Sölvesborg, Shekarabi’s facebook comments – or basically any effect from the myriad of issues over the last few weeks, is going to be pretty disappointed.

22 sep. – OECD for raising taxes

Raising taxes on highly polluting sources of energy is an effective way to curb CO2 emissions, says a new report from the OECD. However, 70% of energy-related CO2 emissions in developed and emerging economies are “entirely untaxed,” giving emission-producing companies little reason to change business practices (bit.ly/OECDtaxes).

Where is Sweden in all this? Sweden has the highest tax on carbon dioxide of all OECD countries – 107 euro per ton CO2 – but this tax is apparently not evenly spread over all emission sources. Only Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland meet or are over the threshold of 30 euro/ton CO2 over all emissions. According to the OECD as reported by SvD, the reason Sweden isn’t part of this elite crowd is because we use so much biodeisel, and biodeisel is exempt from CO2 taxes.

For many countries, especially developing ones, it is politically challenging to make prices high enough to encourage (or at least make economically worthwhile) deep reductions in CO2 emissions. The Yellow Vest movement in France is one example of popular pushback. In Sweden, the revolt over the taxes on gas (bensinupproret 2.0) is a minor variant of the same. Australia, Canada, Great Britain and a dozen-odd states in the US have taken significant steps in taxing emissions. In Canada, though, the opposition Conservative party has promised to do away with the tax if they win in the upcoming election (nyti.ms/NYTimesEmissions). Also exerting significant popular pressure, but in the other direction, are the pro-environment youth movements pressuring their governments for just these sorts of taxes.

The main report, with a country-wide breakdown so Sweden can really see where it’s at, will be presented in October. We can expect bigger headlines then.