In only one year’s time it will be elections in Sweden and S-leader Mona Sahlin must introduce some drastic changes in her communication strategy if the party is going to improve its appalling statistics (see footnote).
Mona Sahlin must as soon as possible let the public know, specially the young voters, what she stands for. She needs to get more involved in national and international issues in order to become more visible and to be able to promulgate the Socialist ideology and values, which enhance democracy, human rights, law, peace, security and equality.
But, what’s more urgent, Mona Sahlin must bite the bullet and follow the example of the flourishing leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister, Mr. Fredrik Reinfeldt. The sooner she does it, the better results the Social democrats will get on September 2010.
She must in particular show respect to what has already been created by her antagonists. That was Fredrik Reinfeldt’s winning model last election to convince lots of social democrats that he is not a treacherous guy.
Four years ago, he succeeded in making the working class and the middle class believe that he was not at all going to rapidly change the political (social democratic) heritage, which functions as the basic frame of the welfare state apparatus in Sweden.
Fredrik Reinfeldt convinced many Swedes that he was not going to turn society upside down through a radical shift; he was just going to improve it and make it more efficient.
Mona Sahlin must now convince the public that she is not going to take Sweden back to the point where Fredrik Reinfeldt took over.
She needs therefore to (m)odernize her rhetorical strategy. Mona Sahlin must stop focusing on generating feelings in the audiences and instead, just like Reinfeldt does, start using a rhetoric characterized by objective reasoning and a neutral facial expression.
Since she was elected to lead the party, Mona Sahlin has been surrounded by YES-men and well-mannered advisers who lack political astuteness. She needs to renew her staff and start working with more daring, proactive strategists if she really wants to convince a majority of Swedes of the high merits and political brilliance of the Social democratic programme. To use Facebook, YouTube and Twitter it’s simply not enough!
FOOTNOTE: A survey conducted by Synovate on behalf of the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, shows today a record weak support for the Social Democrats (S) in Stockholm.
Only 21.6 percent of the people support S, which is the worst result since universal suffrage was introduced in Sweden, says a source at Synovate. And the trend is following developments in the country.
Men snälla Diderot, varför inte svenska. Inte för att jag inte kan engelska, men det är ju svensk politik vi diskuterar!
Hej Lars,
Tanken med den här bloggen är ju att människor både i och utanför Sverige, som inte har haft möjligheten att lära sig svenska, ska kunna läsa om vad som händer här.
Svensk politik och hur den svenska staten och dess välfärdssystem fungerar intresserar många människor, inte minst inom engelsktalande forskarkretsar som (tyvärr i många fall) inte alla gånger är tillräckligt uppdaterade på vad som försiggår i detta vackra land.
/Diderot
Salut, je déduis que tu parles francais de par ton prénom. Je ne comprends pas comment tu peux soutenir la socialdémocratie suédoise, qui est une force purement réactionaire dans la politique sédoise.
Bon, je te souhate bonne continuation.
Viktor,
Je ne soutiens pas les sociaux-démocrates. Je suis un libre penseur.
/Diderot