TV ‘duel’ between Sweden’s two PM candidates
The final ‘duel’ debate between Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and her challenger Ulf Kristersson saw the two discuss profits in the welfare sector, the electricity crisis, and saw Andersson challenged on her Somalitown comments.
The former Social Democrat politician Saida Hussein Moge, who left the party after Andersson said she didn’t want “Somalitowns” in Sweden, was called up to challenge her.
“Why did you choose to stigmatise and single out us Swedish Somalis?” she asked. “Was it because of the colour of our skin?”.
Andersson said that the comment had not been pre-planned, and that she had intended to say that people of different backgrounds should live mixed together in Sweden.
“I know that Somalis in Sweden face a lot of discrimination in their every day lives, and I hate that,” she said.
Swedish vocab: skin color – skincolour
Lööf: Stop badly run schools from withdrawing profits
Centre Party leader Annie Lööf has announced that the government should impose quality criteria which companies running schools will have to fulfil if they are to take profits out of schools and distribute them to shareholders and owners.
The new policy indicates how her party is seeking to find common ground with the Social Democrats, who are campaigning in this election on a ban on companies running schools from withdrawing profits to shareholders at all.
In a debate article in the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, Lööf called for the Social Democrats to drop their policy and agree on the Centre Party’s compromise proposal.
Swedish vocab: quality requirements – quality standards
Power supplier in Sweden plans to declare force majeure: minister
One of the 100 energy companies in Sweden is planning to to declare force majeure and break off its fixed price contracts with consumers, Sweden’s financial markets minister, Max Elger, has said, citing an anonymous enquiry sent out by the trade body Swedenergy.
“Of 109 members, 90 percent have answered, and 93 percent of them do not plan to declare force majeure,” he said in a press conference. “Six percent have yet to take a position, and one percent, that’s to say one member, plans in the current situation to declare force majeure.
In contracts, force majeure refers to extreme situations which cannot have been reasonably anticipated at the time the contract was signed.
Swedish vocab: to invoke – to invoke
Swedish government accuses opposition of ‘lie campaign’ over nuclear
Sweden’s finance minister Mikael Damberg has accused the opposition Moderate party of running a “lie campaign” over nuclear power in Sweden four days before the country goes to the polls.
“I’m becoming a little tired of the Moderates carrying out a lie campaign in this election,” Damberg told Swedish state broadcaster SR.
“They claim that we shut down nuclear power, which is not true, and also argue that we’re to blame here. I could just as well flip their reasoning and say that it’s down to the Moderate municipalities saying ‘no’ to offshore wind power in southern Sweden.”
He also pushed back against Moderate claims that legal frameworks prevent the branch from expanding and building more nuclear power plants.
“There’s nothing to stop the building of nuclear power plants today, but no one has done it so far,” he said.
With just four days left to the election, energy prices are a big issue for Sweden’s political parties, who are coming up with new suggestions for how to lower prices every day.
Swedish vocab: lying – dishonest, lie-filled
Sweden Democrats set out demands for post-election talks
The far-right Sweden Democrats have announced a list of policies they want a future right-wing government to put in place if the right bloc wins a majority in Sunday’s election.
Among the new policies is a law bringing in compulsory deportation of foreign citizens who commit crimes in Sweden, stop-and-search zones in areas with crime problems, and a national ban on begging.
“Issues around safety and security are going to come above all others during the next parliamentary term,” the party’s leader, Jimmie Åkesson, said at a press conference announcing the proposals.
He said his party would ideally receive ministerial seats in a new government, but that if this were not the case, it would need to receive commensurate policy concessions.
“If we back a government, it will require an agreement in place which sets out the reforms that need to be carried out,” he said. “We expect to have a big influence.”
“We understand that not all Sweden Democrat policies are going to be become reality after a change in government,” he continued. “But we are going to make demands across many policy areas. These demands are not ultimatums. We now that they need to be negotiated.”
Swedish vocab: security issues – the issues around safety and security