Campaigning

My blogging has suffered from the fact that I'm on a campaign journey in different parts of Sweden in connection with the election September 17th.

At the moment I'm on a train approaching Gothenburg, and will spend the day here before proceeding to Skåne - the southernmost region of Sweden - tomorrow.

Increasingly it looks likely that we will see a change of government as a result of the elections.

I have never been in an election campaign where the Social Democrats have been as passive and defensive as in this one. Their virtual absence as one travels around to the different meetings even feels somewhat strange.

Yesterday evening was the important interview with opposition leader Fredrik Reinfelt in TV.

He did very well, and opinion polls indicate that so far every other party leader has done better in these interviews than Prime Minister Persson, with Reinfeldt at the top of one of the lists.

It will require something truly unique for the Social Democrats to turn this election campaign round in their favours in the somewhat less tan two weeks remaining.