Swedish Election 2018

Boy oh boy, a four year chaotic period is finally over and the Swedish people have elected... yet another "no winner" set of parliament. And now even the Sweden Democrats (SD) can't be that happy with the result since they were well and above 20+ % and the spot as the largest or second largest party and instead they ended up third with just at 17% and the Moderat (M) party at 19% (close to 20). You could tell that all the fear and anxiety that have been building in all the parties pretty much died around 22:00 on election day. The Green Party (MP) didn't leave parliament, the Left (V) and Centre (C) parties had some really good results, but compared to the above 10% they were polling with 7-8% as the result are a bit disappointing. Contrast that with the Social Democrats (S) that expected under 25% and falling from 31% to 28% was kinda good. The only one genuinely happy would be the Christian Democrats (KD) that not only made their best result in 20 years, but also showed that even though they polled 2% in the beginning of the year you couldn't count them out. And us Liberals (L), well we gained 0,1 so we went from 5,4 to 5,5%. First time we got a better result than last election for 12 years. Gotta be happy for those small things.

So what happens now? It's to close to call (red-greens 144 seats (V+S+MP), alliance 142 (L+C+M+KD) and the Sweden Democrats 63 seats) so everyone awaits the recount at the County Administrative Boards of Sweden were all pre-votes, foreign votes and at first glance disqualified votes are counted together with every other vote and it might or might not change some swing seats. For example one seat I saw was only given to the Sweden Democrats from the Centre party with a margin of 7 votes. Usually the ca 50 000 foreign votes are leaning more heavily to the bourgeois parties so that could be beneficial. Not enough for a majority, but if the Alliance get more than the red greens and maybe snatch 2-3 seats to be the biggest block there is more likely that they can dethrone the Social Democrats. Which I would prefer anyway, but what are you gonna do?

So how will the future government look like? The alliance can't create a majority without leening on either the Social Democrats or the Sweden Democrats. The Social Democrats won't since they will not get the prime minister post and the Liberals and Centre parties have trouble getting support from the Sweden Democrats. So I think that the Moderats will create a minority government with the Christian Democrats and get the Liberals and Centre to support the budget and get passive support from the Sweden Democrats while making a deal with the Social Democrats on "fixing" the migration issue and get supported by the Sweden Democrats, and with it expelling the question and hopefully bring it back to economical reforms of the Swedish economy, workers rights and housing issues. Why do I believe this? Because if all the promises each party have done, that is the logical conclusion. L and C can't sit in government supported by SD, and they won't support a red-green government (S+MP), SD have also said they can't support a government with MP or C (and I would assume V and L, but that haven't come up). S won't support any other than themselves, MP is to small to support the Alliance and the Alliance don't want support from V and KD and M have said they will bring down S no matter the cost. And that is the reality. If no one breaks their promises we will have a M+KD government in a couple weeks. And I'm OK with that. 

And now to some trivia. I have yet again been able to be caught on camera by the Swedish Television as they filmed the local election night watch parties. So you can spot me on the Alliance Watch party around 23 seconds in, but I wont tell where I am so for those that doesn't know me have to guess:

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/val2018/inget-block-far-egen-majoritet-i-nykoping

Happy Post-Election Day and see you on the other side!