Sweden's general election campaigns gain momentum

As the general election campaign has begun, Sweden is filled with election atmosphere. Posters from different parties and the pictures of candidates are already presented in the streets of various cities, especially in Stockholm.

According to Skop's latest poll, the four-party governing Alliance won 48.7 percent of votes and the Red-Green coalition won 45.3 percent. The competition between the two major parties, Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party is especially hot.

The poll shows that the support for Moderate Party and the Social Democratic Party are exactly the same which is 31.2 percent.

The ruling Alliance continues to play economy card. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt promised further decrease of tax, the same amount as the previous period, meaning that those who are working will get over 1,000 kronor (about 134 U.S. dollars) extra per month. This has caused the dissatisfaction of the retired people which account for nearly 20 percent of the population.

To win votes from the elderly, the Alliance promised to allocate a total of 15 billion kronor (about 2 billion U.S. dollars) to decrease tax for the retired or give allowance to them during the coming four-year term.

The Red-Green block has promised to scratch the tax gap between the retired and those who are working, which is welcomed by the retired people. But the method to achieve it can be more tax on the employed or lower tax for the retired or only lower the tax of the retired.

Meanwhile, Mona Sahlin's Social Democratic Party and the Left Party promised to invest more on health care and education. The amount stands at least 12 billion kronor (about 1.6 billion U.S. dollars) which is the part of the tax the Alliance promises to decrease.

The proposal is to create more jobs by recruiting more doctors and nurses in health care and more teachers in education. Their slogan is to let children choose schools but not let schools choose children.

The Red-Green block wants to tax high value apartments, which will affect over one percent of the population while proposing to build 20,000 new small houses for young people.

They will also invest 7.5 billion kronor (about 1 billion U.S. dollars) in children's free time activities so that the group becomes smaller from the current 36 person per group to 20. The purpose is to have better conditions for every child.

The Alliance proposed a reform package of 5.6 billion kronor ( about 749 million U.S. dollars) including reducing restaurant tax by half from 25 percent to 12 percent so that more people will go to eat at a restaurant. This will help create at least 8,000 jobs.

The Alliance also proposed to increase student's aid from 8, 100 kronor (about 1,083 U.S. dollars) per month to 9,300 kronor ( about 1,244 U.S. dollars).

The Alliance promised that people who buy low-emission cars will from 2012 be entitled to a 40,000 kronor (about 5,349 U.S. dollars) grant which is four times more than the previous one which ended at the end of last year.

The Green Party also proposed to give subsidies to low emission cars. The party also demands public sectors organizations use low emission cars while companies'high emission cars will be highly taxed.

In the latest debate on how to improve young people's employment, the Red-Green bloc proposed to remove entirely the employer's contribution for companies that want to recruit unemployed youths.

"Resources are needed to ensure that young people do not end up in a three-month waiting period for Employment Service. We want employers to get a youth deduction if they offer a man or a woman' s work, a trainee position, or internship," said the Social Democrats' economics spokesman Thomas Ostros.

Finance Minister Anders Borg from Moderate Party wants to reduce taxes so that more and more people want to hire those who want to work, but the reduction should be done with caution. He believes the new jobs are in services, particularly in the service sector.

This year's general election is very interesting because it is very uncertain since the Nationalist Movement, the Swedish Democratic Party has surpassed the threshold of Parliament, 4 percent, according to the poll, and other small parties are possible to be out. Suppose one of the governing parties is out of the parliament, the Alliance cannot reach a majority alone and will collapse.

In Sweden, people usually vote for different parties, but this time, people think the competition is also between Prime Minister Reinfeldt, 45, leader of the Alliance and Mona Sahlin, 53, leader of the largest opposition Social Democratic Party.

The competition is also between two major blocks, the alliance and the red-green. In the previous election in 2006 when the Alliance won, it was because they had changed their extreme right character, instead, they became more center-right. That is to say that the ruling government has tried to keep the welfare system while being very pragmatic and substantially believing in market function.

Now it continues with the center track to talk like what the Social Democratic Party talked about "benefiting all", "creating jobs for all", not by public recruitment, but by lowering tax and supporting small- and medium-sized companies.

They continue to say so because opinion shows that the government did most of what they have promised such as lowering the tax, but in supporting small companies, they didn't do well. The risk investment area gained the most complaints, too.

Analysts hold that due to the financial crisis and the public finance problem in other European countries, Sweden implemented a tight financial policy.

So far the green party has won more support due to its environmental friendly policy. The Left Party also comprised a lot so that it is with the red and green.

The Alliance includes Moderate Party, People's Party, Central Party and Christian Democratic Party while the red-green block includes Social Democratic Party, Green (Environment) Party and the Left Party.

On Sept. 19, voting for the general election, regional election and community election will all be held at the same time.

Source: Xinhua