There were a lot of empty seats at the Liberals’ national convention in November.
A review carried out by TV4 Nyheterna shows that the party went from 18,100 members in 2010 to 9,799 at the end of December 2023 – a decrease of 46 percent.
Party secretary Gulan Avci is not particularly satisfied, especially since the Liberals, for example, lacked candidates in 41 of Sweden’s 290 municipalities in the last election.
– Unfortunately, it is a long-term development we see among many established parties, where fewer people choose to get involved politically. And it makes me very concerned and worried. If this trend continues, it will damage democracy in the long term, she says.
SD has grown by 616 percent
The party secretary of the Sweden Democrats is all the happier. When SD entered the Riksdag in 2010, the party only had about 5,000 members, the registers from that time are not entirely accurate. Today, the party has grown to 35,834 members, an increase of 616 percent.
In the past, the party has had difficulty finding candidates for assignments, and despite electoral success, the party has been rocked by scandals, defections and empty seats.
– The membership development has not been as fast as the development we had in mandates and elections. There will be some growing pains as a result. But we are now starting to catch up in terms of membership, says Mattias Bäckström Johansson, party secretary for the Sweden Democrats.
Not all parties are finished with 2023 membership figures. But among the big losers over time are also the popular movement parties the Center Party and the Social Democrats, who lost many sympathizers during the 10th century.
Shared opinions about the Tidö collaboration
But there are others that are growing besides SD. The Christian Democrats show a slight increase, and the Left Party has more than doubled its membership during the same period. And although all parties have mantrad that politics attracts members – there are divided opinions among the winner and the loser as to whether the Tidö collaboration is a member magnet or not.
– It is no wonder that it has been a challenge with this government constellation. The Liberals and the Sweden Democrats are ideologically far apart, says Gulan Avci (L).
– We do not feel that the Tidö collaboration has made it more difficult. On the contrary, we can clearly show the gains we have politically with the collaboration we have with the government parties, says Mattias Bäckström Johansson (SD).
So has the number of party members changed over time.
So has the number of party members changed over time.