Election Drama

It turns out that the "racist" party got 330,000 votes which is more than either the Christian Democrats or the Leftists (two of the seven established parties.) The thing is that even with the multi-party system, it really comes down to the ruling coalition and the opposition coalition, and they are expected to always vote together. It would appear that everyone's very obedient and votes according to their party and their party's alliance. While one may vote for individuals within the party, the individuals do not behave as individuals, so I and doubtful how much it matters.

Anyway, it would appear that neither the moderate alliance nor the socialist alliance has the majority, and the racist party is given the extremely powerful position of the swing vote. Or they would be, but all of the other parties have refused to cooperate with them. The winning Moderate party is embarrassing themselves by trying to court the Green party, who are in turn laughing at them.

I won't go into a lot of detail here, so for more background information here's articles from CNN and Fox News.

What bugs me is that everyone is so caught up with distancing themselves from the evil racists, that they may be overlooking the more important stuff. First of all, I don't think it's really a matter of racism; at least for most people, I think they're capable of looking beyond skin color. It may be more of a cultural racism based on religion or a general xenophobia, but I suspect it's more than that. What I really think it is, is a backlash after years of being unable to even discuss the issues of immigration and integration. If anyone even dared to suggest that integration policies were ineffective or that immigration policies should be changed, they were automatically labeled racists and shunned by all. In the meanwhile, ever increasing numbers of immigrants were pouring into ghettos where they had little or no reason to learn the Swedish language or culture, unemployment was rampant, and crime was on the rise. In the rest of Sweden, tough economic times and cuts in welfare and social services effected everyone. I would be more surprised if people weren't resentful.

The last time a xenophobic party held seats in parliament in the 1990's, 70 % of Swedes felt immigration was a problem. This year, the number was only 40%. ONLY! Had the others really changed their minds, or had they learned to keep quiet? And what does it say about the state of democracy when an opinion held by 40% can't even be discussed? Perhaps the established parties should consider themselves fortunate that the unmentionable got less than 6% of the seats in parliament.