Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
1. Describe briefly the organizational structure of the parties of the (Radical) Left in your
country, including the way of electing the leader and the members of main party bodies,
according to the statutes. Please comment
The biggest Party on the radical left in Sweden is by far the Vnsterpartiet, V,
(the Left party). I was founded 1917, in a split from Socialdemokratiska
Arbetarpartiet, SAP, (the Social democratic Party). There is also Feministiskt
Initiativ, FI, (the Feminist Initiative party), founded by the popular former
chairperson of Vnsterpartiet, Gudrun Schyman, and some other small Left
parties (a few Trotskyite with local representation, and one more or less
stalinist). Feministiskt Initiativ got the best national result (0,4% 2010) but has
a weak organizational base and only municipal seats in one commune, and a
very small one at that. The biggest of the fringe Left parties is the troskyite
Rttvisepartiet Socialisterna (Justice Party of Socialists) with a stronger
organizational base, lots of campaigns and newspapers sales but only some
municipal seats and with a national result (2010) of 0,03%. They are the
Swedish section of CWI/CIT (Committee for a Workers International)
The grassroots level/democratic base of Vnsterpartiet is generally organized
in geographic areas or on some rare occasions based on branch and trade
union political grassroots organisations, which elect their board once a year.
From these local organisations representatives are then elected to the annual
regional conference (who in turn elects a regional board and chairperson) and
every second year to the national congress (that elects national board and
chairperson, programmatic committee, writes the platform, changes the party
program, statutes and so on). The congress usually has about 200 delegates.
Elections to all boards are normally prepared by electoral committees that
nominates a board to be elected. Vnsterpartiet is also a stated feminist party
since 1996 and the statutes require that all boards should have at least 50%
women, the chairperson included.
The number of members in the national board has changed somewhat over
the last years but usually amounts to around 25-30 people. The executive
committee consists of seven party board members. There is no formal
regional quota but in practice aside from other political factors of course
such aspects as regional, ethnic origin, social movement background and so
on are considered.
2. How are European (Radical) Left parties candidates for the national and European
Parliament elections chosen (according to the statutes)? Please comment.
National parliament candidates are chosen at regional party conferences
(same as those described above) that decides regional candidates. For the
EUP list a national conference is held.
3. Which are the functions of each body (secretariat, central or political committee or council
etc) in the parties of the (Radical) Left of your country (according to the statutes and in
reality)? Please comment.
The practice is not very far from the statues. The secretariat (consist of party
secretary and employed, not chosen, political secretaries) takes less
a problem for general welfare to be able to ignore the elections. This points
to a strength of Vnsterpartiet in contrast to social movements, in that its long
history and clear standing as a parliamentary force made it a more likely
oppositional force to combat the right wing policies of the government.
When people needed somewhere to turn to, Vnsterpartiet seemed like the
most stable alternative. This is what makes the party a credible defending
force for general welfare and against cutbacks. But at the same time, a
summing up of the history of the last 25 years does not show a great deal of
results for all the effort put out. The problem with being a 5% party is having
to compromise too much in times of governing, and ending up stating that
well it would have been worse if it hadnt been for us.
16. What is the social structure (peasants, public and private sector workers and
employees, professionals, jobless, students etc) of the voters and members of the (Radical)
Left parties in your country? Are there any recent available studies on this issue? Please
comment.
There is an ongoing survey on voter attitudes and backgrounds that has been
analysed by the professor of political science at the Gteborg university,
Henrik Ekengren Oskarsson.
There is still a strong working class bias within the electorate, where half the
party electorate defining themselves as either workers or workers in a
leadership position as opposed to 33% within the general electorate
average. All figures here given in contrast to the average electorate. The
reverse goes for whitecollar workers, where there is a lower percentage than
in the general electorate. There is also an electoral bias in favor of people
with low income, 3% more than the average, and -6% for people with high
income. There is 10% more voters out of people working in the public sector
and 11% more of LO/TUC members. Within people aged 18-30 there is a
high degree of unemployed, 12% of the group which is 5% than average and
also students, 6% more than average at 42%.
11% of the total Vnsterpartiet votes are comprised of students, which is 4%
above average, where pedagogy and social science/psychology being the
biggest two at 11% and 9% respectively. Vnsterpartiet has the highest
percentage of voters born outside of Europe of any Swedish party at 4% and
7% within second-generation immigrants, which is 3% above the average.
And lastly, Vnsterpartiet has the highest degree of politically interested voters
at 71% of the partys total vote, and also the strongest party identification
where 37% of the voters consider themselves as followers of the party.