Jacob Christensen

Peter Santesson asked in a tweet if Henrik Oscarsson wasn’t being too cautious in his conclusions about the state of the election campaign (and consequently, that my reference to HO was also over-cautious).

As I’m not an electoral researcher or statistician, I’ll leave the technical details to Oscarsson and just summarise how I interpret the numbers:

1. There are variations between individual polls and we should be extremely careful when reporting or interpreting on the basis of single polls. Especially when a poll shows a major development compared with other polls and earlier polls from the same pollster.
2. I put Mona Sahlin’s chances of becoming prime minister after the election to = 0%. The collapse of support for the Social Democrats is something which will merit the attention of an army of pollsters and political scientists.
3. It is not likely that the Centre Party or the Christian Democrats will fall below the 4%-threshold. (See comrade Four Percent).
4. Support for the Sweden Democrats appear to the on the increase. Even if there are statistical uncertainties, I now think it is more likely than not that SD makes it past the threshold
5. The big question to me is: Will the alliance win a majority of its own, despite SD entering the Riksdag, or will Sweden have a hung parliament. Here, it looks to me that everybody have something to play for.

Monday’s round-up:

• My colleague Nicholas Aylott summarises the state of the game so far.
• Henrik Oscarsson has checked the numbers and is not prepared to call the election yet.
• Robert Östling at Ekomonistas considers the dynamics behind “Comrade Four Percent”.

A late note on Pia Kjærsgaard’s entry to the Swedish electoral campaign this Saturday. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a transcription of her speech at sd’s rally in Höganäs, so I will stick to making some general observations.

First, I don’t know of any studies into the use of foreign party leaders in national election campaigns. I suspect that the reason is that these appearances are generally seen as electorally irrelevant. Most voters only know national party leaders but will have a hard time recognising foreign party leaders. Just to test yourself: If you are Danish, name the leader of the Swedish Liberal Party. If you are Swedish, name the leader of the Danish Socialist Party. Googling is not allowed.

This leads to my second observation: Why invite foreign party leaders, if they have no visible impact on voters? After all, the Social Democrats have invited Norwegian Labour leader and prime minister Jens Stoltenberg and the Centre Party Finnish Centre Party leader and prime minister Mari Kiviniemi. (For some reason, nobody appears to have thought of inviting Danish PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen.)

My guess is that these guest appearances are mostly directed at the party activists. Seeing yourself as part of an international (successful) movement might spur activists during a campaign and that may again be a help in mobilising voters.

Kjærsgaard’s visit in Höganäs might bring a little more than that. sd is struggling to achieve electability and DF is not only electable, it has also been the partner of choice for the Danish Liberals (and to a lesser degree the Conservatives) since 2001. Appearing alongside Pia Kjærsgaard would give sd party leader Jimmie Ã…kesson a massive boost among party supporters, especially those who want sd to be a mainstream party, and help mobilise campaign workers in the last week of the campaign.

(I’m pretty much in line with Marie Demker as quoted in an interview with SvD here)

On the other hand, the visit might not be without risks for Kjærsgaard. After all, sd historically has its basis in the nationalist fringe and the border between sd and extremist currents has not always been clear. Even if she often uses a very potent rhetoric, Kjærsgaard is in fact a cautious party leader and she and the rest of the DF leadership have always been careful in distancing themselves from outright xenophobic or racist organisations or individuals. DF has no doubt vetted Åkesson and the sd leadership thoroughly before deciding to attend the sd arrangement.

The final question is if Pia Kjærsgaard’s appearing at an sd arrangement has any benefits for DF. There is of course an anti-Swedish sentiment among a large section of the nationalist opinion in Denmark (check out Ralf Pittelkow or any of Jyllands-Posten’s bloggers) and they would love to see sd enter the Swedish parliament as it would reassure them that the Swedes (or rather 5-6% of them) are just like us (or rather 13-15% of us).

Again, this is more of an elite (hah!) phenomenon, but I doubt if it has any direct effects on present of prospective DF voters.

Apologies for the lack of updates. The thing is that the Swedish election campaign seems to be moving ahead at the expected pace with the economy, jobs and social services as the main issues. Immigration and integration below the radar.

The talking points I would make for an improvised discussion would go along the lines:

1. The major story to me is the collapse of support for the Social Democrats. Soc Dem getting around 30 percent and being the second largest party in some polls is like recording pigs flying all over the place and flying saucers landing in Times Square. and yet, Swedish media appear curiously unsurprised.

2. How is the relatively strong performance of the Sweden Democrats linked with the weak performance of the Social Democrats?

3. If SweDem pass the 4 percent threshold and there is no overall control in the Riksdag, I would expect Fredrik Reinfeldt to form a minority Alliance government but just like Poul Nyrup Rasmussen in the 1990s to go for agreements with either the Green Party or the Social Democrats.

Okay, okay… If you are interested, here are the links to the manifestos of the major parties:

• The centre-right “Alliance”
• The red-green coalition

What is interesting here is that both sides present common manifestos. The blue corner had one i 2006, but it is a first for the red corner.

• Social Democrats
• Moderates (Link goes to election site. As far as I can see, M has no manifesto of its own)
• Centre Party
• Liberals
• Christian Democrats
• Greens
• Left Party
• Sweden Democrats (Link goes to election site, I suspect that the “shadow budget” is the closest to a dedicated manifesto.