Honeymoon over for new party leader?

The support for the Social Democrats has evened out and even decreased in May compared to April 

  • Stefan Löfven, the newly elected leader of the Social Democratic Party in Sweden, may have to realize his honeymoon with Swedish voters has come to an end.

  • The increased opinion polls for the Social Democrats since Stefan Löfven became their leader in January of this year, are now evening out. In the latest poll by Yougov (an international Internet-based market research firm), the support for the Social Democrats has evened out and even decreased in May compared to April: 34.4% in April, 34.3% in May.

  • Stefan Löfven at the time of his election on Jan. 27, 2012, with Carin Jämtin, party-Secretary of the Social Democratic Party. Photo: Anders Löwdin.

  • “They have collected what sympathy capital there was to collect in public opinion,” says Henrik Oscarsson, Professor of Political Science at Göteborg University. “There’s not much more to get, at least not at the moment.” Since Håkan Juholt’s departure as leader for the party, it has gone from record low numbers of 21.9% to becoming one of Sweden’s biggest parties, according to Yougov. But in spite of that, the problems of the party may not be over. “The leader crisis is over, the opinion crisis is over. But what led to the crisis in the Social Democratic Party is that it needed an ideological change, and we can think about whether or not such a change has taken place,” continues Oscarsson.
    For the Moderate Party, a party that has weathered some serious storms during the past months, things have made a turn for the better. In last month’s poll they were below 30%, in the poll for May, they receive 31.1% of support from voters. Confidence remains high for both Löfven and Moderate Party leader (and current Swedish Prime Minster) Fredrik Reinfeldt. “The entire election campaign is more and more becoming a fight for confidence. There aren’t any great ideological differences in party politics at the moment,” Oscarsson concludes.
    “I won’t rest until we have a Social Democratic government...” Lofven recently said