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Local Sweden
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
Could a new Centre Party leader determine Sweden's next PM?
From the very start Muharrem Demirok, the genial but low-profile former city councillor from Linköping, was an odd choice to lead the Centre Party. He represented neither the party's urban liberal wing, with its combination of right-wing economic and socially liberal ideas, nor the rural voters left over from its origins as Sweden's farmers' party. He was the child of a Swedish mother and a Turkish father who grew up in the Stockholm suburb of Valby, but he was a pragmatist compared to the rest of the party's ideological Stockholm faction. So it may have been harder for him than for another leader to steer the party out of its tricky political corner. But it would have been tough for anyone. This is a party whose members largely view themselves as centre-right, at home in an alliance with the Moderates, but whose voters see themselves not, perhaps, as natural allies of the Social Democrats, but at least as implacably opposed to the far-right Sweden Democrats. Whether another candidate would have succeeded in solving this puzzle, we will never know. But Demirok clearly did not, leading to his resignation. According to the Expressen newspaper, the decision came after Demirok received calls to stand down from several of the party's most powerful districts, including Skåne, Jämtland and Halland, and then failed to rally party colleagues to support him. His critics within the party claim that the issue has always been his leadership, rather than his apparent wish to ally the party to Sweden's left-wing opposition and that their opposition had nothing to do with a desire to take the party back into a historic alliance with the centre-right parties. "Leading centre party to Demirok's weak leadership and that he never managed to grow into the role," the Dagens Nyheter newspaper's political reporter Annie Reuterskiöld, wrote. But the party's problems, she argued, run much deeper that. Leading it was, she argued, a "kamikaze mission". "That the Centre Party's voters want one thing and large parts of the party leadership want another, is a much more uncomfortable conclusion to come to, and one that it will be the next party leader's big task to solve." The question, if the next leader were to follow the Liberal Party and drop its opposition to working with the far-right Sweden Democrats, is what this would mean for each bloc's chances of forming a government after the 2026 election. In the latest poll, published by public broadcaster SVT, the opposition parties (Social Democrats, Green Party, Centre Party and Left Party) together had a 5.1 percentage point lead on the so-called Tidö Parties (the Moderates, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Sweden Democrats). The Centre Party has the support of 4.6 percent of voters. So if you assume that all the Centre Party's voters remain loyal despite a decision to ally with the Sweden Democrats, then switching sides would put the government-supporting parties more than four points ahead. That's a very big "if", though. Opposition to the Sweden Democrats was arguably the main reason to vote for the Centre party in the 2022 election. The risk for any new leader announcing an intention to switch sides is that many of the party's current voters would instead vote Social Democrat, or even for the Green Party. Moreover, crossing the bloc divide would put Centre in direct competition with the Liberal party for the same centrist voters. In the 2022 election, the Liberal Party was already reliant on tactical votes from Moderate Party supporters to nudge it over the 4 percent threshold to enter the parliament. If Centre switched sides, it's far from certain that both parties would clear it in 2026. While Social Democrats to the right of the party, such as its leader Magdalena Andersson and its finance spokesperson Mikael Damberg, might prefer to keep the Centre Party as an ally, those on the left would shed few tears if it changed sides. The Centre Party has historically refused even negotiate with the Left Party, let alone join it in a government coalition. Once it is out of the way, the path would be clear to a three-party coalition which could enact long-blocked reforms. The right-wing parties would use the spectre of an unconstrained left to scare current Centre Party voters into following their party over the divide, but they might have a hard job painting Andersson and Damberg as far-left radicals. So even if Demirok does end up being succeeded by a new leader more open to cooperating with the Sweden Democrats and joining the current government in a second term, as seems likely, this new leader might not find it any easier, either to keep the party united or to improve its poor performance in the polls. Rather than bringing the clarity on the government issue that Demirok has been accused of lacking, his successor is likely to be vaguer still, perhaps opening up to supporting a government reliant on Sweden Democrat backing, but postponing any decision on which bloc to join until after the election. So will the next leader of the Centre Party be in a position to choose Sweden's next prime minister? It's not so simple. Could the Social Democrats change their name? Two veteran Social Democrat politicians on Sunday raised eyebrows with their proposal, in an opinion piece in the Aftonbladet tabloid, that the party change its name. They weren't talking about going in for a total rebrand and ditching the name "Social Democrats". This was about adjusting the party's official name, Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti, or "The Swedish Social Democratic Workers Party". They proposed calling it instead Löntagarpartiet Socialdemokraterna, arguing this would expand its potential supporter base beyond blue collar workers to all löntagare, a word that includes anyone who receives a lön, or "salary". "If we continue to label ourselves as only a workers party, we are giving 2.1 million white-collar workers a reason to ask, 'why should I vote for a party which isn't trying to represent me?'," Björn von Sydow, a former trade minister and parliamentary speaker, and David Lundqvist, a former chair of the Social Democrats in Sigtuna, wrote. Migration Minister speaks up for multicultural Sweden Sweden's Migration Minister Johan Forssell told SVT on Thursday that he believed that immigration had enriched Sweden, expanding on comments he had made in an interview with Aftonbladet. 'In many ways there are a lot of things about it which enrich our country,' he said. 'The fact that we're not all the same, that we have different cultures, different religions even. The fact that we celebrate different holidays.' 'That doesn't need to be an issue, as long as we can manage to unite together around some very important values. That's what has not worked in recent years.' Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats, criticised Forssell for insisting that Sweden would remain a multicultural society, calling it a "capitulation". 'Sweden should not be multicultural,' he said. 'Sweden should be Sweden. The people who have chosen to settle here should adapt to Swedish norms and values, and should strive to be part of the nation.'
Local Sweden
24-02-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
Swedish Centre Party leader Muharrem Demirok to step down
"I am aware that my leadership has been criticised," Demirok said, adding that "it will be someone else's task to lead this party into the next election." Demirok has been in hot water recently, with the leader heavily criticised from within the party for his leadership, his low opinion ratings and the ongoing debate as to which side of the political divide the party should align with in the run-up to next year's election. He reportedly called for the party to formally support Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson, which would align it with the Left Party and Green Party, although party leadership could not come to an agreement. "I'm not prepared to let a discussion on my party leadership stand in the way for Sweden or a positive election result in 2026," Demirok said. The party had an opinion rating of just 3.8 percent in SVT/Verian's most recent voter survey in February, 0.8 percentage points lower than the previous month. That's well below the 6.7 percent result from the 2022 election and just below the parliamentary threshold of 4 percent. The only party which scored lower was the Liberals, with a rating of just 2.5 percent. This was the lowest rating for the two liberal parties since the voter survey began over 50 years ago. The Centre Party has collaborated in the past with the Christian Democrats, Liberals and Moderates as part of the Alliance government, but has historically refused to work with the Sweden Democrats, which has barred the party from working with the right-wing bloc currently running the country. The party also refuses to work with the Left Party, which is one of the four parties in the left-wing bloc, meaning that it has found it difficult to find a place in the new political climate. "I'm not scared of Social Democrats. I'm not scared of Green Party members, Moderates or Liberals or Christian Democrats," Demirok said in the press conference on Monday. "The opposite in fact, because I know that they are not the ones threatening to destroy the Sweden we love. We share a common ground." Demirok took over as party leader in February 2023 from Annie Lööf, who had been leader of the party for over 20 years. Sweden's two political blocs have a roughly even split of votes, with just 3.8 percent between them in February's opinion poll. The current ruling block has 176 seats ‒ the government (Moderates, Liberals and Christian Democrats), with the support of the Sweden Democrats and one former Sweden Democrat who is now independent. The opposition ‒ the Social Democrats, Left Party, Green Party and Centre Party, plus one former Social Democrat independent ‒ has 173 seats. If the new leader of the Centre Party were to ally with the right-wing bloc and the Sweden Democrats, it would represent a shift to the right for Swedish politics and effectively make it impossible for the Social Democrats to form a government, unless there were major shifts in support for the other left-wing parties.
