Coalition Politics in Sweden

...After all, the Social Democrats could always come back if it didn't work out...

...Thorbjorn Falldin, leader of the Center party and now of the government (invariably described in the Swedish press as "the craggy-faced sheep farmer"), made atomic power the major issue of his campaign...

...Given these feelings, one may wonder what led the Swedes to opt for change...

...Looking back at the campaign, it is clear Palme's opponents prevailed because they succeeded in keeping the spotlight on issues they wanted to discuss...

...Yet the Center party's parliamentary seats actually dropped from 90 to 86 in the balloting...

...There aren't that many per cent...

...Because of the 175-175 split in Parliament, the Socialists had to form alliances with other parties to pass tax, land and family legislation...

...WHY THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATS LOST Coalition Politics in Sweden BY BONNIE POTTER Washington The electoral defeat suffered last month by Sweden's Social Democrats, after 44 consecutive years in power, has been labeled "a massive upheaval" by one major American newspaper and attributed to unhappiness with overbureaucratization by another...

...Thus the Socialists—who might at one time have remained at the helm with the 42.9 per cent of the popular vote they received on September 19?have increasingly had to share parliamentary control with the three-party coalition, despite the backing of the Communists...

...Should Falldin let the price controls run out, though, higher taxes may be necessary to keep the inflation rate—already at 8 per cent—under control...

...the Center party derives its support from farmers and small businessmen...

...And while Swedes are dissatisfied with aspects of the welfare state, the campaign debate somehow never took up such matters...

...But the Socialists, led since 1969 by Olaf Palme, were forced to cede their stewardship of the government by only .7 per cent of the final vote...

...The coalition hit hard at the bureaucratic stranglehold, promising decentralization...

...This painful problem was satirized last year in Expressen, Sweden's largest daily newspaper, by writer Astrid Lindgren, creator of the Pippi Longstocking tales...

...A show of weakness by the new government on any number of matters, or of internal dissension, would enable the Social Democrats to call for a vote of confidence that could lead to a new election before Falldin's three-year term is up...

...Nuclear power and the burgeoning bureaucracy were talked about...

...By 1973 Parliament was so evenly divided that the two sides each held 175 seats...

...When the Social Democrats took power in 1932, the opposition was fragmented...

...The moderates, in fact, supported the Social Democratic energy plan in Parliament...

...Indeed, it has been said that their four-decade affair with the Social Democrats mostly reflected their aversion to innovation...

...A Swedish parliamentarian summed up the results of the vote this way: "There seemed to be the attitude that maybe we should try a change...

...In addition to the people who had depended on the reactors for jobs, this will no doubt irk some of Fallddin's political allies, who favor atomic energy as a way of making Sweden more independent...

...They constitute only one component of a five-party system that includes the Moderate, Center and Liberal parties ?representing different interests, if not ideological outlooks ?and a tiny Communist organization...

...task of simply getting along with itself...

...And Expressen, associated with the Liberals, has urged that the Moderates be excluded from the government because they accepted campaign contributions from corporate interests...

...ver and above specific policy decisions, the coalition faces the arduous Few were surprised when, two days after the election, the youth and women's sections of the Center party issued a statement urging it not to have anything to do with the Moderates...

...At the moment, it appears content to let political nature take its course...

...You're kidding," she replies...

...Nevertheless, now that Falldin is in power, he will have to make good his promise to halt work on the six reactors under construction or on the drawing board as well as dismantle the five in operation...

...Another potentially explosive issue for the new government is the expiration of selective price controls in December...

...The slightest shift at the polls in either direction promised to make a decisive difference, and this year that shift took place in favor of the coalition...

...The Moderates (formerly the Conservative party) are businessmen, the wealthy, senior civil servants, and professional soldiers...

...In Monismania there are any number of percentage points...

...the Liberals are primarily city dwellers and intellectuals...

...its partners, who did not come out against nuclear energy, provided the margin of victory (the Moderates going from 51 to 55 seats, and the Liberals from 31 to 34, giving the coalition a total of 180...

...The nuolear controversy, for example, might very well backfire...

...No safe method has been found to dispose of radioactive waste, he continually noted, then went on to warn of the danger to future generations...

...A related sore point and one of the most widely-debated, the extensive and impersonal bureaucracy, could prove to be a third embarrassment for the incoming government...

...If, on the other hand, the coalition does muddle through, there is one certainty in Sweden's hazy future: The next election campaign will be forced back to the fundamental concerns of employment and the quality of life...

...Sweden is a highly stratified society, and the three parties represent diverse and sometimes opposing interests...

...at the same time, they pledged not to raise them...

...Since the '60s, however, the three middle parties have managed at least a partial synthesis of views and strategies...

...Instead, according to a Palme campaigner now visiting here, "Especially during the last weeks, we just couldn't seem to discuss anything but nuclear power plants.' Even more damaging to the Social Democrats than atomic energy or the size of the bureaucracy, though, was the fact that the current state of Swedish politics put them in a highly vulnerable position...

...What it failed to realize was that its inexperience with the intricate workings of the highly complex state will put it at the mercy of the veteran managers, at least for the near future...

...lots had to be drawn to decide tie votes...

...Well aware that Swedes arc loathe to give up their extensive welfare benefits, the center parties refrained during the campaign from suggesting they would lower taxes...

...One explanation for this year's shift is that the Social Democrats themselves made the opposition respectable ?the same service the West German Christian Democrats performed for their Socialist rivals during the "Grand Coalition" of the '60s...

...prove to be one of the election's many ironies that the coalition's chosen themes could precipitate its downfall...

...In 1975, the Palme Cabinet put forth an energy program that called for 13 nuclear power plants to be constructed by 1985...

...In Lindgren's poem, an official tells her she owes the government 102 per cent of her income...

...But it may Bonnie Potter, a free-lance journalist, is based in Washington, D.C...

...The last seems to be very close to the thinking of Palme's party, too...

...Oh yes," he says...

...Consequently, the electorate came to see less difference between them and their opponents...

...Like film director Ingmar Bergman, she had been mauled by the tax collectors...

...It would appear, therefore, that nuclear power played a less significant role than it has been credited with in bringing down the Social Democrats, whose parliamentary representation went from 156 to 152 (while the Communists went from 19 to 17, for a total of 169...

...the Social Democrats' considerable success in reducing unemployment and promoting education were not...