Analysis: Calculated social democracy on the road to rise again

The scene change in Swedish politics is almost total. A month ago, the Social Democrats were almost calculated with shrinking public support and poor confidence in Stefan Löfven. The government had on several occasions been felled in the Riksdag and an increasing criticism was heard within the Social Democrats against the cooperation with the Center Party and the Liberals.

But the corona crisis has completely changed the picture in Swedish domestic politics. Confidence is rushing for the government. In January, 19 percent of voters had fairly or very much confidence in the government. Today, the corresponding figure is 48 percent.

Voters obviously appreciate the government's way of dealing with the crisis so far, which has benefited above all the Social Democrats, which is the dominant government party. According to Novus, Stefan Löfven now gets a confidence he could only dream of a month ago.

Today, 44 percent of voters say they have fairly or very much confidence in the prime minister, compared to only 26 percent in February.

The corona crisis has thus provided an opportunity for the social democracy to rise again. It is not surprising that the largest government party benefits in a crisis. This happens often and right now, for example, the same applies to German CDU and its Chancellor Angela Merkel.

However, one should be careful to draw too far-reaching conclusions from the rise we see in confidence in the government and Löfven so early.

The Corona crisis is far from over and voters seem to be satisfied with what the government has done so far does not automatically mean that they will be satisfied with what the government is doing in the future.

There are also signs that the political bourgeoisie in the shadow of the crisis may be about to erode. The moderates, who have so far supported most of the government's actions, have begun to criticize the government, including regarding the number of coronate tests conducted and that the government has been overly defensive in its actions here.

The government also hopes that the pandemic will be over in the summer and that the economy will begin to recover in the fall. If this does not happen, we will instead see continued spread of infection and closed countries around the world, all the government's forecasts will be broken. The economic crisis then becomes even deeper.

Moreover, we are only at the beginning of the crisis fight. The difficult thing in a crisis is not always to deal with the emergency, as the consensus on what needs to be done is often great. No, the problems may instead appear in the post-crisis phase when the political system should try to get the wheels of society starting to spin again. In this situation, the economy can also be expected to be in a significantly worse state, which reduces the scope for action.

For the Löfven government, this can be a tough challenge, given that his government lacks a majority in Parliament. We have already seen several examples during this term of office that the opposition in Parliament is prepared to run over the government.

In addition, if the corona pandemic provokes a severe economic crisis in society, it will not only be more difficult to obtain support for crisis measures in the Riksdag, there may also be cracks in the so-called January cooperation. The ideological differences between the four January parties are large in terms of the view of how new jobs can be created.

The high confidence figures Stefan Löfven can be pleased with today need not be permanent. They can easily be torn apart by new conflicts or setbacks in Parliament or in the government.

However, the strong confidence figures give him a better starting position for the remainder of the term of office. Political issues such as employment and the economy are now gaining more importance in the political debate, which can benefit the Social Democrats but also the Moderates. On the other hand, the issue of integration also remains important, not least given that weak groups in the labor market risk being eliminated first, which in turn may benefit the Swedish Democrats.