Swedes elect new ruling party

After being bombarded with election information since the second I stepped off the plane, I’ve witnessed a Swedish election firsthand and managed to learn quite a lot about the political system here. The election was held Sunday and the “Alliance” challengers have narrowly won the vote of the Swedish people in a race that has ended the 12-year reign of the Social Democratic Party.

As a non-Swede, it’s not that passionate of an issue to me, to be completely honest. On the contrary, it was almost much more interesting than it was frustrating to watch a national election; I’m used to wringing my hands at the American election results and either being incredibly disappointed or completely joyous. Due to my status as a non-citizen, it seemed to me that I spent a lot more time listening to the candidates’ views and analyzing how those views were constructed, instead of rooting for my side.

Since I’m taking a Swedish politics course right now, we’ve been discussing the parties and how elections are conducted. It was certainly a great time to take the course. Our professor, an instructor that was stepping in for the person originally intended to teach the course, was actually on the local ballot for the Moderate Party (Moderata Samlingspartiet, or Moderaterna). The Moderates were the leaders of the “Alliance” that defeated the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna) and are considered a right-leaning/conservative party. Of course, this definition is all relative, but newspapers were declaring Sweden to now be “blue” (the color that represents the conservatives, contrary to the United States color associations).

Many people with whom I’ve spoken believed that Sweden needed a change and accepts the fact that the more conservative party of the two larger is in power. Some of those people also believe that, in another four years, we’ll see the Social Democrats take over again.

I can understand that people wanted change, but I am with some of the people who are afraid that Sweden will start implementing policies that are, for example, far too close to those of the United States. And although the Swedes currently have seven parties in parliament, it almost felt like there were just two and the others were merely there to aide one of the main two. A few of the Swedes I’ve talked to agree with me.

It’ll be interesting to see the types of changes that come about while I’m here, and although I’m really unsure about how good this change is for Sweden, I’m excited to see what will happen. Let’s hope it is for the better.