The Social Democrats are heading for their worst election since universal suffrage was introduced. Now the party's election campaign is being criticised by several left-wing commentators.
The newspaper Arbetets ledarsida writes that S has ignored its own election analysis from 2022. In it, the party concluded that the focus on the Sweden Democrats at the end of the election sprint did not mobilise voters from the LO collective.
Threatened with SD
"The conclusion was clear: The party cannot base its strategy on voters' antipathies towards another party. The Social Democrats must instead try to win support for their own policies," writes the newspaper, which is owned by LO Mediehus, and continues:
"Four years later, the election campaign culminated in the party threatening Sweden with twelve SD ministers."
Aftonbladet's culture editor Karin Pettersson, who was previously head of communications for the Social Democrats and head of Aftonbladet's editorial page, writes that S had an open goal - but missed.
Pettersson believes that the party should have carried out a generational change long ago, but that "instead of taking up arms against the party leadership that is stuck in the logic of the 90s, the young generation accepted the rigid, outdated logic of Mikael Damberg and Magdalena Andersson."
“Didn’t dare”
Daniel Suhonen, head of the trade union-owned think tank Katalys, calls the Social Democrats' election result "a total failure" in an interview with Expressen .
He says that the policy the party has chosen for the election has been the "most progressive in decades" but that it has not been talked about.
They have managed an advantage that has been based on economic conditions and dissatisfaction with the government instead of building momentum for their own policies, he tells the newspaper.
