Swedish Election - Also In Swedish

It's less than a month to the Swedish parliamentary election on September 17th.

We will elect the 349 members of the Riksdag, and its composition will decide who will be able to form the next government when the new Riksdag convenes on October 3rd.

This Sunday is the official start of the campaign, with the parties having put up their election posters.

As I biked back from a meeting downtown, the posters were already up everywhere. It's been the usual battle to secure the best positions.

I will obviously return to the issues of the Swedish campaign somewhat on this blog in the weeks to come, but in addition I have set up a Swedish-language blog where comments will be somewhat more frequent.

You can easily access it at this address - www.dagsattbyta.blogspot.com.

At the moment, the opinion polls are giving the ruling Social Democrats 34-35% support.

When they lost power in 1976 they achieved 42,7% and when they lost in 1991 they achieved 37,7% - so obviously, they are in a rather difficult situation.

As they had 39,9% in the 2002 election, it looks very likely indeed that Prime Minister Göran Persson will finish his political career with a rather substantial defeat for the party.

If, in fact, they end up with an election result along the lines of what the polls are indicating at the present - but four weeks is a very long time in politics - it would be the worst result for the Social Democrats in a parliamentary election since the Spring of 1914 (!).

It will be a campaign worth watching.