In Sweden we have national elections next year, September 2014 to be exact. It's going to be interesting. The election campaigning have barely started but there are some issues starting to stew around the country which can end up having a large impact on the elections. Here are some of them.
1. On Tuesday (5th November) the leader of the Swedish Democrats (Sverige Demokraterna in Sweden, they're a conservative, nationalist right wing party) was 'caked'. 'Caked' has become a real expression in Swedish politics as it is not the first time a political leader has had a cake thrown in his face (note it's only happened to men!). Jimmie Åkesson was doing a book signing in Sweden when a 60 year old woman came up towards him with a cake and threw it in his face. Now, I am all for open democracy where there's a freedom of expression and even people with wrong opinions are allowed to express these. And I think it's wrong to attack political leaders since it can impact our democracy and might scare people from becoming politicians. But then again. It was a cake. In the face of a man I cannot stand. And a man many Swedes cannot stand. It's pretty telling of the split amongst Swedish people.
2. The Foreign Office did an internal investigation into their distribution and reporting of foreign aid and found that they had large shortcomings. In Sweden most of the foreign aid is goverend by SIDA, our development agency. But then there's another part which is goverend by the foreign office. This part is not controlled in any way by the looks of it. Today another internal investigation was made public which claimed that the first investigation was incompetent, insufficient and just plain wrong. So we have an internal investigation being criticised by another internal investigation. And at the end of it all we have a Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Carl Bildt, who has said it doesn't matter because he has no control or authority over the money that his ministry administer. Makes sense? Not in the slightest. I hope this, together will all the other criticisms which seems to run off him without leaving a trace, will help change our government next year.
3. We have eight parties in parliament. Four in a ruling coalition and three in opposition. And then there's the Swedish Democrats no other party wants to work with. Out of the four parties in the ruling coalition three are in the risk zone of not getting enough votes to remain in parliament. Which can truly shake Swedish politics. Which would be exciting and fun. New alliances would have to be formed. Interesting indeed!
These are just my random observations. It's going to be an interesting year, that much I know!
