Election fraud. Isn't that something that happens elsewhere? In underdeveloped democracies, somewhere far away from Sweden, the country that was placed as number one in the Economists Democracy Index 2008? No.
Perhaps it is not as serious as having the votes put in a garbage can at an general election, or that people are prevented from voting at all. But the recently discovered fraud in the party's internal, guiding, elections reveals a rather serious weakness of the process in how Swedish politicians come to power.
The political parties, and their now fairly small number of members, are sitting on the power, while the influence of voters is small. This results in quite dirty battles over the party lists.
Last Friday, Mats Rudin, of the Moderate party (liberal-conservative) in Stockholm, resigned from his candidacy to the Parliament election. The reason was that he had admitted that he had paid the member fee for new party members.
A clear violation of the rules that the party had set up. But really no big deal, as an isolated phenomena. But what followed was allegations that the new members also received instructions on whom they would vote for in the party's internal election for the list to the Parliament.
There has even been allegations that a circle of politicians in the party orchestrated a scheme where they put up a fund for the election. Member recruiters then used the money to pay the member fees for new party members, often found in suburbs with a completely different socio-economic profile than the party's traditionally posh strongholds. By then controlling a number of party votes, they where able to manipulate the list of candidates, placing themselves in a better position, getting a higher chance of reaching an MP seat and a monthly salary of SEK 55,000.
This could of course just be evil gossip from a jealous party wing. But statistics actually show that a group of candidates has gained a suspiciously strong vote from certain city districts.
This escalation has scared the leadership in the party, who now have stopped the internal election. An outside accounting firm has been tasked to review the whole electoral process and scrutinise the results. Up to 50 party members will be investigated, but so far is only the Rudin case confirmed. However, the person responsible for the internal election, MP Mats G Nilsson, has stepped down from the assignment.
Things could have stopped here. But allegations about fraud in internal party elections has also reached other parties.
A member of the Pirate Party (info anarchism) have registered an unknown number of false votes for himself. The man was one of the names of the party's parliamentary list. He has now been deleted from it, and also chosen to leave the party. A candidate for the Centre party (green-liberal) has misused the register of party members in his personal campaign and been asked to take a time-out.
Also parties who do not use the method of internal party elections among all members have had similar scandals. When the Social Democrats in the province of Östergötland was to vote for their local party lists, a number of members faked to be entitled representatives and voted for their favourite. There was also reports that there had been threats aimed at those who dared to vote on the wrong person. After protests, the vote was redone.
Party power
The Swedish electoral system, with proportional representation, party lists, and only very weak elements of direct election of the legislative is mainly to blame for this turbulence a couple of months before the general election. It's the party members, or the party nominating committee, who chose the representatives.
Since Swedish parties throughout history have been more of popular movements than campaign organisations, this has not been such a great problem. But some things have changed in the last decades.
Parties who once counted hundred of thousand members, in some cases more than a million, today may only have a tenth of those numbers. At the same time Swedish political parties have gone from being the bearer of an original ideology, to instead increasingly catching up issues from the daily political debate and people's everyday lives.
These two trends have reinforced each other, this because parties have had to seek more competitive strategies, when the base of party loyal has declined. At the same time, such a party who need to keep up with the times need a strong leadership, more than a broad debate with many participants.
That aspiring politicians can go pretty far in the fight to gain power in the parties is thus no wonder. It is a kind of top-down democracy that seems to have evolved in the Swedish political parties.
Voices are now raised, especially from conservatives and liberals, of more elements of direct election by the voters. But there is also concern that this will lead to too much of campaign politics and that only politicians with strong financial support will benefit from such a system. The famous 'consensus culture' in Swedish politics and the society at large may also take harm with this solution.
But the question is also for how long the system can live on with so much power in the hand of the party's leadership and cadre. There is a risk that the lack of party democracy damage the public's confidence in the system with too many of these kinds of scandals and conflicts
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. But there also seems better or worse forms of democracy. Time will tell the path of the Swedish electoral model.