COMMENTARY: How the old guard scrambled Reinfeldt's plans

Fredrik Reinfeldt

Maria Borelius

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By Kalle Koponen in Stockholm
     
      All the jubilation over the historic election victory by the parties of the centre-right in Sweden - and over what was seen as a new page turned in Swedish history - has vanished in a week in a tragicomic haze of seedy revelations, clumsy attempts at explanations, and downright lying.
      After being Prime Minister for just eight days, Fredrik Reinfeldt of the Moderate Party, one of the quartet of centre-right groups in the election-winning "Alliance for Sweden", has had to sacrifice his first minister.
      The bloodhounds among the opposition and the press are unlikely to settle merely for the head of Foreign Trade Minister Maria Borelius. The ministerial chair is also wobbling underneath Culture Minister Cecilia Stegö Chilò.*
     
Reinfeldt is a cool customer, a man who does not easily show his feelings. It is probable that he is seething on the inside. The blundering of his own troops has managed in a matter of a few days to wreak more havoc on the Moderate Party he has reformed than the ousted Social Democrats could in an entire election campaign.
      Reinfeldt might also turn the whip on himself, however. Already on Friday October 6th, the day when the Reinfeldt team was announced, it seemed surprising that he should have picked so many representatives of the "old guard" within the Moderates.
      Stegö Chilò is reported as having earlier stated that she would be delighted to be taken to court for her unpaid TV-licence fees, which dated back over a decade. Now she says it was just a matter of simple negligence, and nothing to do with any ideological revulsion she might feel towards public broadcasting.
      When Trade Minister Maria Borelius - who palpably has enjoyed a privileged and upper-class lifestyle - came out and declared that she would have been quite unable "to afford to pay all the taxes and fees" if she had employed her children's nanny legally, the Swedish press corps released the safety-catch on its collective pistol.
     
The two women's attitudes and actions have seriously eroded the credibility of Reinfeldt's project to capture the political centre and relaunch the Moderates as "new moderates" and "Sweden's new workers' party" and as the choice of the average working middle-class Swede.
      In Sweden, the demarcation lines between left and right are much more sharply defined than in Finland, and Reinfeldt has tried to erase from the Moderates' brow the former stamp of wealthy tax-haters.
     
According to some analysts, Reinfeldt brought members of the unreformed right wing of the party on board in order to be able to keep his opponents where he could see them.
      It has also been suggested that Reinfeldt will ultimately find it to his advantage that these characters have immediately gone and trashed their credibility in this way.
      Time will tell. In the short- term, the Prime Minister's own judgement in his choice of cabinet members does not look to be the best possible.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 15.10.2006
     
*Note: Cecilia Stegö Chilò's chair collapsed on Monday morning, as she announced her resignation from the Culture Minister's position. She has also been reported to the police by the TV-licence company Radiotjänst and by the Swedish Transport Workers' Union (over similar non-payment of taxes on a nanny to that in the case of Maria Borelius). Stegö Chilò withheld her TV-licence payment for sixteen years, before offering to pay it in arrears with interest five days before taking office. Public broadcasting in Sweden is included in the Minister of Culture's portfolio. The announcement of her resignation stole the headlines on Monday, just as Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt sought to direct attention towards the government's budget proposals. Finance Minister Anders Borg's budget calls for substantial tax cuts and reductions in unemployment benefits.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Sweden and Finland pledge to keep each other informed of NATO plans (16.10.2006)
  PM urges ministers not to answer questions of minor tax evasion and TV licence fee dodging (16.10.2006)

Links:
  The Swedish Government

KALLE KOPONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
kalle.koponen@hs.fi