The Greens and the allaince: A forced marriage

The speculations concerning the left-right belongings of miljöpartiet has been vast; not at least in election times where they have been, and still is, in a position where they hold the balance of power and a fortiori the final say on who is to govern the next four years.

In an article in Dagens nyheter not only Folkpartiet (FP) but also Moderaterna (M) opens up for a coalition that includes the greens. The position of the green party is somewhat different this time then earlier elections when talks about joining the right wing coalition has occured. This difference is the emergence of Sverigedemokraterna (SD) and the possibility of them entering the parliament. According to a recent poll SD have a relatively good chance of getting the 4% required to get seats in the parliament.

According to their own sayings none of the present parties occupying the parliament is willing to be in coalition with SD. These statements is most certainly honest ones as SD is another kind of party with more direct extreme right connections then the former populistic Ny Demokrati which was in coalition with the right wing block in the 1994 government. This means not only that their politics is somewhat far of from the other right wing parties, but aloso that the political climate in Sweden is such that a coalition with SD may be perceived as a major political risk for any party – hopefully.

The big question then is, will the green party be willing to join coalition with the right wing block? There are more or less two ways to answer this question - and none of them will of course be able to predict what will happen. First you can look at the politics of the green party. According to Björklund, the leader of FP, MP is a party that has the most affinity with the alliance of the right wing block; a part from their view on nuclear power that is. This is very true but maybe to a simplistic view of Björklund, underestimating the differences in other core areas such as the EMU and the much debated health insurance issues. Even setting these things aside the “free year” policy enacted by the green party was one of the first things abolished by the alliance as they formed government four years ago.

There are of course possibilities to build bridges between the greens and the alliance that isn’t overwhelmingly long. But even though the greens will be a relativily small party even after the election in September it will be in the size of other parties in the alliance. In this sense having the green party joining the alliance it will most certainly have a saying in many issues. Thus, having the greens in a coalition will not only mean letting one more party join in, but most certainly change the way the government will govern in the forthcoming four years.

How many demands the greens will be able to have in a hypothetical agreement with the alliance touches on the other way in which you can answer the question whether or not there will be a coalition of this type. If SD will have such a big impact on the outcome of the election that the green party is in a situation where they need to cooperate, they may relinquish some of the demands they might be able to pull up if they are in a more favourable position. On the other hand, the situation might become so difficult to handle that their will be a cooperation between the blocks locking SD out of action.