{"id":1862,"date":"2010-09-07T15:43:32","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T15:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=1862"},"modified":"2010-09-07T15:43:32","modified_gmt":"2010-09-07T15:43:32","slug":"valstugor-a-swedish-phenomenon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/valstugor-a-swedish-phenomenon\/","title":{"rendered":"Valstugor – a Swedish phenomenon?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>It’s only two weeks left until Election Day (Sept 19) \u00a0in Sweden the final race to win the voters have just begun.\u00a0Every day is filled with\u00a0broadcasted debates, talk shows, live chats, interviews…well, Sweden is pretty much\u00a0nothing but politics at the moment. I was back home this weekend, a friend got married and in between ceremonies and parties I managed fulfilled my duty as a Swedish citizen and voted. In Sweden you can start voting from the September 1. The local library, town hall or council hall has designated voting areas that is open every day up until the election. If you are living abroad but still is a Swedish citizen, you can vote via post.<\/p>\n

Anyway. There will be plenty of reasons to come back to the election itself, but today I must write about something the struck me when\"\"<\/a> being home this weekend. Have you ever seen a valstuga? A valstuga (translate: election cabin<\/strong>) is a little cabin – placed in the town centre of every town in Sweden, big or small – where the party get to meet their voters or has a chance to recruit new ones. Let’s take Kung\u00e4lv – my old hometown, as an example.\u00a0The little park in the middle of town is packed with these little cabins now, one for each party (well, the<\/a> big ones atleast) and if you want to know a little bit more about Folkpartiet, well then you just walk up to that cabin and within seconds you’ll be bombarded with values, promises and point of views.\u00a0 You will also get bombarded with treats, since all cabins are loaded with freebies like sweets, stickers, pins, pens, condoms, leaflets… And I promise you, wherever you go in Sweden these days, you will find the same thing.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The election cabins are a bit of a mystery. Noone really knows when and why they appeared, but they have been traced back to 1940’s. The trend really kicked off in the 1970’s, when the parties got their own money to spend. Nowadays, there are most certainly quite a bit of rivalry\u00a0between the parties when it\u00a0comes to\u00a0election cabins. Who has got the\u00a0 the most inventive design? Who’s got\u00a0\u00a0the prettiest cabin? Who’s got the coolest? Who’s got the best freebies? \u00a0Who’s got the best guests? And come post election – they are all for sale and if you fancy your own election cabin in your back garden, September 20 would be your day!<\/p>\n

I’m not sure if these little cabins appear anywhere else in the world around election, but I’m pretty sure that you can fill me in on that.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0I do know that they were nowhere to be found here in England this year when we got a new prime minister. But maybe somewhere else? And while we’re at it, is there anyting particular that might interest you when it comes to the Swedish Election 2010? As usual, yor wish is our command!<\/p>\n

Photos: Fi, Centerpartiet, Socialdemokraterna<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

It’s only two weeks left until Election Day (Sept 19) \u00a0in Sweden the final race to win the voters have just begun.\u00a0Every day is filled with\u00a0broadcasted debates, talk shows, live chats, interviews…well, Sweden is pretty much\u00a0nothing but politics at the moment. I was back home this weekend, a friend got married and in between ceremonies…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11194,11196,11197,11195],"class_list":["post-1862","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-election-2010","tag-election-cabins","tag-politik","tag-valstugor"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1862"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1877,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862\/revisions\/1877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}