So it’s election year again. Swedish campaigns are rather quiet events. Fewer scandals, less mudslinging, a more conciliatory tone. Still, there’s a lot of badmouthing these days. So here’s a challenge:
Find ten good things to say about your opponent!
Not trivial stuff like he’s got a nice shirt or supports the same football team. Politically relevant reasons to appreciate your opponent.
I’ve never voted for the Social Democrats and probably never will. So there’s my challenge and here I go. I made my top-ten list of positive things from a decade with Prime Minister Persson.
The countdown begins tomorrow.
4 comments:
1. He is honest. He married his mistress from the time as a finance minister, mrs Anitra Steen. That shows good caracter.
2. He is opendminded. He cheated his two first wifes to such an extent that it shows an open mind and an interest in other human beeings.
3. He is loyal. He has arranged for his new wife (former mistress) to get a job that she would never had got by application. With a generous salary of 2 MSEK per annum.
4. He is consequent. Without exception he gets rid of all ministers and close staffmembers that by any reason is not sharing his opinions.
5. He is humble. He accepted full responsibility for the bad handling of the Tsunami-effects in Sweden - at least for a couple of months.
6. He is a feminist. He appreciates female company more than male. (To an almost industrial extent)
7. He is protecting the environment. By adding taxes to the energy price he makes electrical power more expensive and thus less consumed.
8. He is a friend of the people. So he asks Swedish energy giant Vattenfall to lower their prices on electrical power. In order to make it cheaper and to increase consumtion.
9. He is a strong humanist. He eliminates the marks from most years in Swedish schools in order to prove that all humans are alike and when the marks eventually appears he accuses schools where students have better marks than average of cheating.
10. He is not selfish. When he was asked about his generous pension plan worth tens of millions SEK and possible to release at any moment he just lowered his eyes and mumbled that this was something forced upon him by the Swedish Parliament. A matter of democracy.
Thanks for the comment but... well, so much for politically relevant reasons to appreciate your opponent.
I suggest you skip the irony and try again.
We face a totally unscrupulous goverment with a prime minister that is showing a very arrogant devotion to power. Irony is one of very few methods to expose such behaviour. You are more than a little naive if you think that political opponents to Mr Persson are going to participate in some kind of friendly game trying to find the best parts of his personality.
A lot of people in Sweden are very upset by all scandals and other signs of the social democrats beeing to long in governement.
>A lot of people in Sweden are
>very upset by all scandals and
>other signs of the social
>democrats beeing to long in
>governement.
I agree. And like I said I won't vote for them. But if we are serious about democracy then we'd have to respect the fact that someone we don't like gets elected and - God forbid - reelected. Which means that either most voters are morons (and then we're back to square one without much respect for democracy) or maybe, just maybe, this other dark side might have its occasional bright moments and possibly even some accomplishments.
But you're probably right, trying to paint the world in any other colors than black and white in an election year is... sort of naive.
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