Τhe Swedish parliamentary election in September 2010 was the first time in almost a century that a conservative government was re-elected. The Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s four-party coalition the Alliance (consisting of the Moderate Party, the Centre Party, the Liberal People’s Party and the Christian Democrats) won 173 seats out of 349 in parliament.

Since 1932 the Social Democratic party has been in government for 65 of the last78 years. Thus,the re-election of Reinfeldt’s coalition is a quite dramatic event in Sweden’s contemporary history.

This year’s election was also the first one where the Social Democrats on forehand had formed an oppositional centre-left Red-Green coalition( consisting of themselves, the Left Party and the Green Party). Moreover, the Social Democrats’extensive electoral failure was their worst election result since equal and universal suffrage was adopted in the early 20s.

The fact that a populist/ anti-immigration party (the Sweden Democrats, not to be mixed up with the Social Democrats) entered the parliament for the first time seems to have surprised both politicians and voters. Nevertheless, the Sweden Democrats were expected to enter the Parliament for the first time, as the populist party’s polling results had exceeded the 4% entry threshold since June 2009.

During the election campaign, the parties had not made up their minds over  the potential coalitions that could be formed if the Sweden Democrats managed to enter the parliament. Did the established parties not take the “populist threat” seriously? I assume that they did take the threat seriously, but they failed in their attempt to tackle problems concerning integration and high unemployment among new immigrants. Those questions were mostly discussed by the Sweden Democrats.

But, there are two sides to every question. One can of course be critical towards the Swedish segregation, but at the same time be positive about immigration and new Swedes. This notion did not emerge during the election campaign. However, this does not prove that voters necessarily think that the Sweden Democrats’choice is the solution to all the problems. Just as one can be openly critical towards the component parts of the welfare state, but at the same be very supportive towards the idea of a wide public sector.

In my opinion, the established parties failed to challenge the populist party in serious debates. Instead the party became the underdog that dared to discuss the actual problems of integration.

Sweden Democrats’ Party was strongly linked to the Danish People’s Party during the election campaign – and more weakly to the more liberal Norwegian Progress Party. But unlike the Danish and Norwegian parties, the Swedish populist party has roots in racist organizations. In order to tackle this problem the Sweden Democrats repeatedly pointed out that the party isn’t racist.

However, the re-election of the liberal-conservative alliance is not a sign that the Swedish voters wish the country would abandon the Swedish welfare model.

Unemployment (as a result of the economic crisis), and the environment were the two other main issues that emerged during this year’s elections. Not surprisingly, the Greens made a significant transformation from the smallest elected party to the third largest party in Sweden. as it was mostly supported by the young, urban, female and highly educated voters.

The Greens were in favour of a “green” shift in taxation policy towards higher taxes on environmentally unsustainable products and services. People were generally opposed to this idea in the past, but the environmental debate over the last five years has contributed to a growing acceptance and respect of the Greens.

Unemployment has been the most important issue during the election campaign. Of course all the parties share the same goal, that is to create new jobs or to better tackle the unemployment issue in different ways. To sum up, many questions during the last year’s election campaign were problems for which the parties had the same final solution. What differed were the recipes for how to get there. Anyhow, this made the Swedish parliamentary election of 2010 a quite “boring” election for many voters. The debates were quite friendly. and all the parties, except the Sweden Democrats, pointed out – over and over again – that they stood united in the fight against racism and xenophobia.