The Left Party is ready to go against a left government leaving them outside. And the troubles for Mona Sahlin, with her Social Democrats, to form a stable government alternative now shows up in polls. At the same time has gay marriages inflamed the otherwise so strong alliance among the governing centre-right parties.
A couple of weeks ago the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Mona Sahlin, was considered to have everything in her grip. A double digit lead in the opinion polls, strong support inside the party and a somewhat stable government alternative. Political analyst believed that a victory for the left in the 2010 election would be something of an easy walk.
But then the financial crisis came. And the centre-right government’s actions seem to have been positively interpreted by the public at large. A strong contrast to the quagmire that for nonce have immobilised the parties on the left.
The latest opinion poll now shows that the Social Democrats have lost more than 10 percent of their voter base in simply one month and Sahlin’s leadership has more and more been contested from within her party. And now is it the Left Party that makes the role as a leader for the political opposition to such a headache for Sahlin.
The Leader of the Left Party (socialist), Lars Ohly, today said in an interview on public radio SR that he and Mona Sahlin have agreed on that the cooperation between the Green Party and the Social Democrats should be frozen until the role of the Left Party in a possible future left cabinet stands clear.
At the same time today was an interview with Peter Eriksson, spokesperson for the Green Party, published in newspaper Svenska Dagbladet where he says that nothing has changed and that their cooperation with the Social Democrats will continue as planned.
But then Ohly stressed that he never will accept a left government who would leave his own party out.
- It may always be a long way to reelection. But we are ready to take that step if we are publicly humiliated in a cabinet discussion, Ohly said.
In times of financial worries like these, voters are afraid of political indecision. This has surely hurt the Social Democrats who were the only of the parties in the parliament who lost support in the latest opinion poll from Demoskop.
According to the results does the gap between the political alternatives shrink from 12.9 to 5.3 percent. The Social Democrats drop from 44.9 to 39.1 percent in voter support. A hard hit for a party that has got used to strong opinion numbers.
But everything has not been well on the right side neither. This week did the centre-right government declare that the four parties could not come to a compromise about the issue of gay marriages.
It is only the Christian Democratic Party in the whole Swedish Parliament that oppose to that the law which regulates relationships should use the word marriage (äktenskap) for other than one man and one woman.
But the government now have sent the issue to be decided by the Parliament, where a crushing majority wants to allow same-sex marriages to be conducted in churches. This has charged allegations about “the arrogance” of the Moderate Party, the strongest of the parties in the centre-right government, who not long ago also was against gay marriages but has turned under the regime of party leader and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
However, pundits of the more cynical type have said that this little media theater almost seems rehearsed. As a way to show that there actually are differences among the parties of the centre-right.
Even amongst some Christian Democratic MPs are there relief that this issue soon will be over since they feel that it has grown out of proportion and stolen to much time from other political issues.
Among the grass roots of the party are the feelings in the other way basically pure anger. Nevertheless will the Christian Democrats sure gain, in much needed, voter support for standing up on the issue.
David Jonasson
david.jonasson@stockholmnews.com