STOCKHOLM In Sweden, everyone who follows the news even a little knows it Mats Knutson’s.
He is a political commentator on the news of the public broadcasting company SVT, who, during the elections, rarely interprets the election battle settings that night. He is also the central character of the election night results broadcast, i.e. Sweden’s Tarmo Ropponenwho explained the election results in ‘s election broadcasts in recent years.
Here are his tips on what to focus on when following the election results this time.
1. Board options
There are two government options: the social democrats Magdalena Andersson led by a left-wing camp or a coalition leader by Ulf Kristersson right-wing government. According to opinion polls, the camps are practically equal.
In addition to the Social Democrats, Andersson’s camp includes the Left Party, the Greens and the Center Party.
In addition to the moderate coalition, Kristersson’s right-wing camp includes the Sweden Democrats, Christian Democrats and liberals.
The groupings are looser than the right-wing and left-wing blocs that previously operated in Swedish politics. There are many policy disagreements within the current groupings, and the government negotiations will not be easy in either option.
Previously, other parties in the Diet refused all cooperation with the Sweden Democrats. The party’s roots are Nazi-inspired, its members have included racists, and its line is anti-immigration.
However, according to Knutson, the Christian Democrats and the coalition estimate that there are two options in this election period. If you want government power, you have to cooperate with the ever-growing Sweden Democrats. Without their seats, power will continue to remain with the Social Democrat-led government.
Magdalena Andersson only refuses to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats. However, according to Mats Knutson, it is not possible for the Social Democrats and the coalition to form Sweden’s red-blue coalition government.
– The supporters of the coalition would definitely not accept the fact that the party would first lose the prime minister’s position and then become an auxiliary party for the Democrats, Knutson reasons.
The Swedish specialty is that even though the parties are now grouped behind the prime ministerial candidates, it still does not mean that they will get into the government if they win. For example, Andersson has said that the left-wing party will not get ministers in the government he leads.
Kristersson, on the other hand, says that the Sweden Democrats will not get seats in his government. However, these so-called support parties gain influence because they get their demands through to the government program.
2. Which party is the second largest?
Secondly, Knutson urges to monitor which party is the second largest in the election results.
Here, attention is focused specifically on right-wing parties. For two weeks now, SVT has published a support survey every day, and from the very first day, the Sweden Democrats have been bigger than the coalition.
The result is completely new and causes great difficulties for the leader of the coalition Kristersson.
His credibility as a candidate for prime minister will weaken if his own party is not the largest in the right-wing camp.
Knutson refers to past years and says that the coalition has not felt great sadness when it has changed its chairman.
However, in the previous elections, opinion polls have shown stronger support for the Sweden Democrats than the election result has ultimately shown. That is, a very big tense point on the night of the results.
3. What about small parties?
The Greens and the Liberal Party, formerly known as the Folkpartiet, are considered small parliamentary parties.
Among them, the Greens belong to Andersson’s government camp and the liberals belong to the right-wing camp.
A vote threshold of four percent is used in Swedish parliamentary elections. If the support falls below that, the party drops out of the Diet.
Both parties have now been in the danger zone, but based on Friday’s SVT measurement, the Greens in particular are now in danger of falling. Its support was now only 4.5 percent.
If one of the parties were to drop out, it would have a decisive effect on the government options. So Andersson of the Social Democrats needs the Greens to be bigger than the right-wing camp.
In Friday’s support measure, the combined support of Andersson’s left-wing parties is 49.7 percent and Kristersson’s right-wing parties 49.4 percent. Converted into seats, the left would have 175 and the right 174 seats in the Diet.
In other words, there can’t be a more even and exciting election battle than this.
According to Knutson, the support for the government alternatives is completely equal, and there is a difference of maybe 20,000-30,000 votes between Andersson and Kristersson’s government alternatives.
– We may be in the same situation as in the 1979 elections, when the difference was only 8,000 votes. The election result was decided only on Wednesday, when the votes cast abroad and the last advance votes had been counted.
The party leaders will continue campaigning even now on election day, Sunday.
follows the course of the election day online, on television and radio. You can follow in the special broadcast starting at 21:55 whether the election result will be decided already on Sunday evening.