Week 20: What do Swedes think of Obama?

Hej allesammans! So then, the result is in: and with 349 electoral college votes to McCain's 162, Obama won rather convincingly, and will be the US President from 20th January 2009 onwards: sadly, we won't be rid of "Dubya" until then, which is a bit irritating, but at least he only has eleven weeks or so before his horrendous time in office comes to a close.



Naturally, I'm rather pleased. I am not the easiest person to place on the political spectrum: I am not a Socialist or Conservative, and I don't support the Lib Dems. But I believe two things are central to government:



1. One party in government only work for a maximum of two terms: after that, you need a change of party. No change, and both the government and the party start to lose their way. It happened to Thatcher's government, and it's happened to the Blair-Brown government. Three consecutive terms of the same government do not generally bode well.

2. In a world of globalisation, it is vital that you don't put people with barely any foreign policy experience in a position of power.



For these two reasons, I believe it was vital that Obama and the Democrats won. Most people were fed up with the Republicans, and McCain, for all his maverick claims, is a Republican. If he had got in, we would have had twelve years of Republicanism, and eight years is quite enough. At least the Republicans will now realise in defeat that they need to reform the party, because under Bush, it has badly lost its way. And the idea of Palin (whose foreign policy experience is laughable) being Vice President, and potentially President, was deeply worrying to me.



But what do Swedes think? Well, one Swede who will be rather chuffed about it all is the PM Fredrik Reinfeldt. He's a big supporter of Obama, and the latter's election victory will only ensure that ties between Sweden and the US remain strong. Ordinary Swedes don't seem particularly fussed by it all, but as Sweden is generally less conservative than most countries, I would guess that they favour Obama over McCain. Reinfeldt is himself a very young PM, and although a bit more right-wing than most of his predecessors, is roughly at the same point on the political spectrum as Obama, so if the majority of Swedes voted for Reinfeldt, I'm guessing most would back Barack.



The effects of this election have been felt and will be felt all over the world, and although a peripheral player on the world scene, Sweden will undoubtedly feel the effects. Sadly, I won't be around to see them, as Bush doesn't leave office until after my return to England. What rotten luck...



Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sweden (But Were Afraid To Ask)

Chris Stanley