‘New’ Social Democracy Defeated in Elections

By Robert Malecki, 21 September 1998

The politics of new Social Democracy was roundly defeated here yesterday. Social Democracy not only lost the elections, but historically it was the largest historical defeat in its history. Losing nearly 10 percent of its base.And perhaps 10% more who usually vote for the Social Democrats staying home on the soffa!

Over and above the fact that over 20% of the population did not vote (also historical) the number of blank votes also were historical over 2 and a half percent.

Generally there has been a classical right/left polarisation in society in the last four years. This is expressed in that the Euro Communist left party had its best election results ever with over 12 % of the vote and more then dubbling its size.

The right wing shift is represented in the Kristian Democrats (religous conservative) jumped from being a four percent part to well over 10% percent party.

Interesting is the fact that the Social Democracy has lost the youth to the left and the old people to the Christian Democrats and in between and extremely large group that stayed on the sofa at home.

One thing is sure is that the Swedish version of new Social Democracy despite help from Blair's professional campaign help has led to the Social Democrats going down to the largest electoral defeat in its history.

And the Social Democract realized this at least two weeks before the election where they in the final spurt completely dropped all pretentions of any kind od new Social Democratic politics for a spurt in the tradition sense with promises of reforms in a desperate effort to stop the defeat pending.

It did not help! In fact four years of dismantling the welfare state throwing tens and hundreds of thousands out on the dole has now claimed its price for these traitors. Already the trade union bureaucracy are demanding a change in line and calling for a left coalition with the Euro Communists on the basis of traditional Social Democratic politics based on going back to the good old times..

A reporter for the Wall Street Journal pretty much summed up the situation that the Social Democracy is faced with when he said that the powerful left wind now prevailing in Sweden makes it impossible for the Social Democracy to carry out its plan of bringing the party into the next century..

In fact this electoral circus has solved nothing. But it has shown that the new Social Democracy (also now pending in the German elections) opens the door to the possibility of deep splits becoming a social reality not only on the electoral arena but on the battlefield of class society.

In fact, the growing rage and disgruntlement amongst the class towards the politics of new Social Democracy is now taking form. It is expressed in both the shift to the left in the historic electoral victory of the Euro Communists but also in the fact that over 20 percent of the population did not vote at all.

More later. Very tired this morning after staying up quite lately to see the results.Another quite interesting point is that here up in the north which historically the red bastion of the workers movement the communists took in places over 25% of the vote! And in fact this about Communists is quite important in that the last week of the election campaign the bourgeois parties trying to raise the red scare with the Euro-communists cause the leadership in Stockholm to go out and claim that Lenin was a dictator! and sent a letter out to All the party branches saying that Leni's picture was to be taken down from all party locals!

It immediately backfired on them in that here up in the north those who did have Lenin on the wall refused on principle to take it down and many party locals made a point of putting Lenin's picture up on the wall!

And in fact this appears to have given the Euro-Communists even more electoral gains up here in the north then in the traditional anti-communist south...

Even the militant group crawled into the local parliment here up in the north for the first time under its own nmame with a little over four percent on the local level.

The Swedish Usec as usual was a miserable failure and in fact here in the north have been completely out manuvered by the militant group and also the anarchists who now appear to be growing with leaps and bounds.

Here in the Commune where I live there has never been a communist elected in the local elections. This morning the Euro-Communists polled 7.7 % of the vote here and now get two seats in the local parliment. And in other places they got25 to 35 % of the vote.

The far right only went forward in the South of Sweden in the Malmo region. And openly racist party got nearly 8% of the vote. But the relative isolation of this local electoral victory must be seen in the light of the religous right in the form of the Christian Democrats becoming the second largest bourgeois party here in Sweden. This from a history of ALWAYS being a party which almost never got over the 4% needed to come into the national parliment.

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki