7 - A Lesson For Countries Where Fear Of Political Change Runs Deep

Summary

Changes had been coming to Sweden for a long time. And ever since the Social Democrats lost power in the early ‘80s for the first time in decades, over the issue of nuclear power plants, the writing had been on the wall.

The message became undeniable on Sept 9 when the Red-Green coalition failed to regain power, handing the Right-of-Centre parties its first retention of power in modern times.

The Moderate Party under Fredrik Reinfeldt managed to win a second four-year mandate at the head of a coalition that includes the Liberal Party, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats.

But what holds greatest interest in these Swedish elections for the rest of the world is the fact that new political dimensions are clearly erasing the classic Left-Right dichotomy and this in one of the few countries where Marxist concepts are still commonly used.

For one thing, the Moderates, once Sweden's true-blue party, has gained ground - and credibility - by styling itself “The New Workers’ Party” destined to replace the Social Democratic Workers’ Party that was the architect of the much studied and much admired Swedish Welfare System.

The Social Democrats are thus looking like one of the many powerful post-war parties in the world which have fallen and which cannot regain power without undergoing a comprehensive rejuvenation exercise. Asian countries have examples of many such parties, including Japan's Liberal Democratic Party and Taiwan's Kuomintang.

Many are claiming that Malaysia's United Malays National Organisation (Umno) is next in line, to which its many attempts at reform testify.

By gaining 4 per cent in these elections, the Moderates are just 1 per cent short of overtaking the traditionally largest Swedish party. But what is also unfortunate for it is that its coalition is also 1 per cent short of a majority.

In order to avoid a minority government, Mr Reinfeldt has either to get the Environmental Party to switch sides, or recruit into his coalition the xenophobic Sweden Democrats - which in winning 5.7 per cent of the votes have come into Parliament for the first time.

The latter would be a very unpopular move that will certainly hurt him in the next election.