well last week at least.
I was amazed to read in todays Dagens Nyheter,the number of votes cast on a candidate basis in the Swedish European Elections last week.
I made this graph for you, I am only presenting the vote count per the most supported candidate for each Swedish Political party. Sorry I didnt have time to put each bar in Party colours!
Votes cast for each Party's most popular candidate
I have given the numbers below. There are several interesting features here.
- Marit Paulsen of the Folkpartiet Liberalerna won the most votes of all candidates, she picked up 220,196 votes to Marita Ulvskogs (Socialdemokraterna) 173,501. This is a fantastic achievement and shows that Folkpartiet picked up a lot of votes from other parties and that the Party votes united in their support of the Partys top candidate
- This didnt happen for the KDs. Poor Ella Bohlin, kristdemokraternas top candidate was gazumped by former Party leader Alf Svensson – who was way down the Party list in ninth place got more votes than Ms Bohlin. Alf will be rolling in cash as he is just about to draw his Swedish parliamentary pension which will go nicely with his fat wage from Brussels!
- A similar thing happened with the Moderates, Anna Maria Corazza Bildt was 8th on the Moderat list but took second place with a whopping 84,726 votes!
- There has been a lot of hype about the Piratpartiet but when you actually look at the top candidates vote they were last but one, five thousand ahead of the loony vänsterpartiet and 10,000 votes behind the Christian Democrats.
Will this translate across to the Swedish parliamentary elections next year? I doubt it. I think the Euro Elections are very much about personalities and the candidates rather than party ideals, I expect those who lent their votes to other parties will return to the fold in 2010.
I think I am in the wrong job, I should have been a psephologist! Is there time to retrain?
| Marit Paulsen | Folkpartist | 220196 |
| Maria Ulvskog | Social Democrat | 173501 |
| Gunnar Hökmark | Moderat | 89915 |
| Carl Schlyter | Miljöpartist | 88712 |
| Lena Ek | Centerpartist | 57652 |
| Alf Svensson | Kristdemokrat | 53935 |
| Christian Engström | Piratpartist | 43597 |
| Eva-Britt Svensson | Vänsterpartist | 38951 |
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{ 2 comments }
What’s important isn’t how many votes the top candidate gets, what’s important is how many votes the party gets. Piratpartiet got more votes than Centerpartiet and Kristdemokraterna, even though Lena Ek and Alf Svensson both got more vote than Christian Engström. After all, Piratpartiet had a strong second candidate on their list, Amelia Andersdotter, who got a lot of votes. Folkpartiet “only” came in third place overall, even though Marit Paulsen is the candidate who got the most votes in Sweden.
You are right its not that important in terms of power but its still, as my post says a tremendous endorsement of Marit. I think it also shows the Party got it right in putting her as the first candidate.
I was just very surprised that she scored more than the Social Democrats and Moderate candidates.
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