{"id":1927,"date":"2010-09-15T17:15:44","date_gmt":"2010-09-15T17:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2010-09-15T17:18:14","modified_gmt":"2010-09-15T17:18:14","slug":"the-question-you-dont-ask-a-swede-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/the-question-you-dont-ask-a-swede-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"The question you don’t ask a Swede part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

We \u00a0are only a few days away from the big election and\u00a0if the\u00a0polls are reliable, it looks like the sitting block, Alliansen (The Alliance), will get another four years of power.\u00a0I’m not going to dig deep into the structure of the Swedish politics, but in short – and as the reader \u00a0David very kindly informed us about – on Sunday every Swedish citizen over 18 will vote for the party who they would like to take places in our riksdag<\/strong> (349 members).\u00a0It is our\u00a0riksdag that forms\u00a0the government (regering<\/strong>) and appoints the prime minister. But\u00a0you need to get at least 4% of the votes to get into the riksdag. Today, seven parties are represented – Socialdemokraterna,\u00a0Moderata Samlingspartiet, Centerpartiet, Folkpartiet Liberalerna, Milj\u00f6partiet\u00a0and\u00a0Kristdemokraterna<\/strong> – and like in so many other democracies, the parties form alliances with eac hother to make sure to\u00a0get the majority\u00a0of the seats and the power of Sweden. \u00a0This is the case in\u00a0Sweden\u00a0 nowadays you more or less choose between two blocks, the sitting Alliansen<\/strong> (Moderaterna, Folkpartiet, Kristdemokraterna and Centerpartiet) and R\u00f6dgr\u00f6na<\/strong> (The red and greens: Socialdemokraterna, V\u00e4nsterpartiet and Milj\u00f6partiet).\u00a0 Short and simplified, Alliansen is more to the right; de R\u00f6dgr\u00f6na is more to the left.<\/p>\n

Well, that’s as good as my crash course in Swedish politics will get. But if you would like to read more about our government system in English, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0I’ve mentioned before, I have not been as involved as I would have liked to be this election. But there’s one social aspect of\u00a0politics that strikes me everytime it’s election in Sweden (every forth year) and the time after.\u00a0Swedes (okay,\u00a0I’m generalizing a bit to prove my point…)\u00a0do not like to talk about how they vote.\u00a0Oh no.\u00a0You can happily ask anyone “Will you vote?” (Ska du r\u00f6sta?)<\/strong> or “Have you votet?” (Har du r\u00f6stat?)<\/strong> but you do not\u00a0aks “Who did you vote for?” (Vem r\u00f6stade du p\u00e5?<\/strong>). In fact, we\u00a0are so not used to it,\u00a0\u00a0that whenever you get some celebrites to actually talk about how they vote, it’s big news and big headlines! Okay, to be fair, it has been a bit more celebrity campaigning and “I’m voting red and I’m proud of it!” this year, but it’s not many and it’s not much.<\/p>\n

Is it the same thing where you are from? Are politictal views a big no-no at the dinner parties? I just find it so strange! The open mided and \u00a0free spirited Swedes don’t\u00a0talk about how they vote. Agree\/disagree? Or is it perhaps a good thing to keep your political veiw to yourself?<\/p>\n

PS: Next time I will dedicate my post to the second question you don’t ask a Swede. Any clue what that might be?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We \u00a0are only a few days away from the big election and\u00a0if the\u00a0polls are reliable, it looks like the sitting block, Alliansen (The Alliance), will get another four years of power.\u00a0I’m not going to dig deep into the structure of the Swedish politics, but in short – and as the reader \u00a0David very kindly informed…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11397,11398,11400,11399],"class_list":["post-1927","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alliansen","tag-de-rodgrona","tag-regeringen","tag-riksdagen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927","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=1927"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1930,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions\/1930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}