QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Describe briefly the organizational structure of the parties of the (Radical) Left in your
country, including the way of electing the leader and the members of main party bodies,
according to the statutes. Please comment
The biggest Party on the radical left in Sweden is by far the Vänsterpartiet, V,
(the Left party). I was founded 1917, in a split from Socialdemokratiska
Arbetarpartiet, SAP, (the Social democratic Party). There is also Feministiskt
Initiativ, FI, (the Feminist Initiative party), founded by the popular former
chairperson of Vänsterpartiet, Gudrun Schyman, and some other small Left
parties (a few Trotskyite with local representation, and one more or less
stalinist). Feministiskt Initiativ got the best national result (0,4% 2010) but has
a weak organizational base and only municipal seats in one commune, and a
very small one at that. The biggest of the fringe Left parties is the troskyite
Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (“Justice Party of Socialists”) with a stronger
organizational base, lots of campaigns and newspapers sales but only some
municipal seats and with a national result (2010) of 0,03%. They are the
Swedish section of CWI/CIT (Committee for a Workers’ International)
The grassroots level/democratic base of Vänsterpartiet is generally organized
in geographic areas or on some rare occasions based on branch and trade
union political grassroots organisations, which elect their board once a year.
From these local organisations representatives are then elected to the annual
regional conference (who in turn elects a regional board and chairperson) and
– every second year – to the national congress (that elects national board and
chairperson, programmatic committee, writes the platform, changes the party
program, statutes and so on). The congress usually has about 200 delegates.
Elections to all boards are normally prepared by electoral committees that
nominates a board to be elected. Vänsterpartiet is also a stated feminist party
since 1996 and the statutes require that all boards should have at least 50%
women, the chairperson included.
The number of members in the national board has changed somewhat over
the last years but usually amounts to around 25-30 people. The executive
committee consists of seven party board members. There is no formal
regional quota but in practice – aside from other political factors of course –
such aspects as regional, ethnic origin, social movement background and so
on – are considered.
2. How are European (Radical) Left parties’ candidates for the national and European
Parliament elections chosen (according to the statutes)? Please comment.
National parliament candidates are chosen at regional party conferences
(same as those described above) that decides regional candidates. For the
EUP list a national conference is held.
3. Which are the functions of each body (secretariat, central or political committee or council
etc) in the parties of the (Radical) Left of your country (according to the statutes and in
reality)? Please comment.
The practice is not very far from the statues. The secretariat (consist of party
secretary and employed, not chosen, political secretaries) takes less
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controversial decisions and prepares the executive board meetings. The EB
has quite a lot of power, and leads the party. It also prepares the party board
meetings and makes suggestions before these. The party board meets every
third or fourth weeks normally. It can – and does every now and then –
correct stances from the EB. Less so now than a couple of years back, which
probably should be interpret as an expression of somewhat higher level of
political consensus then as a considerably harder hierarchy. In some
questions however there are considerable minorities that (though not in an
obvious faction like fashion, the way it was a couple of years back) in
disagreement with the majority/EB.
4. How are decisions taken in the parties of the (Radical) Left of your country (according
to the statutes and in reality)? Which is the real decision making person (s) or body (ies)?
Please comment.
See the answer to question 3.
The parliamentary groups – not least on local and regional level – however
consist strong power bases. Since they usually have as well much political
information, public arenas and more economic and personal resources then
the party boards, the former usually have a stronger influence on the party
then can be told from the statues. The
statues states that the parliamentary groups should take important political
decisions in together with and in dialogue with respective boars, though in
practice the possibilities for the boards to enforce their decisions and political
lines are somewhat limited. There are quite some regional differences here.
On the national level this was more the case a couple of years ago. During
the long formal cooperation with the social democratic government (19982006) the party board managed to regain more of its strength to enforce
decisions vis-à-vis the national parliamentary group. Now organizational
changes are being done to unite the national party office and parliamentary
office under one structure. The results of this remains to be seen.
5. Are there provisions in the statutes for limits in the terms of office and/or rotation of
party officials, deputies, MEPs and if yes please describe them. Are these provisions
followed? Please comment.
There are some recommendations on rotation and a general consensus that it
is desirable, but there are no formal limits.
6. Are the creation of factions, currents and platforms allowed (according to the statutes
and in reality) and what is the experience on this issue? Please comment.
Factions are explicitly not allowed and could be grounds for expulsion. But
expulsions on a political basis are very uncommon. There is of course
different tendencies and currents within the party, but they are not formally
organized and at the moment they seem vague.
7. Are there provisions (in the statutes) for disciplinary sanctions against party members,
including expulsion and if yes under which procedure and, if yes, how often are they
implemented?
There are specific grounds for expulsion and to sum them up they describe
different ways in which a person could harm the party while being a member.
They are usually implemented on more formal than political grounds, for
example against people who have done something that explicitly contradicts
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the party’s principles. Another clear-cut example is if someone joined
another regional party - competing on the regional level against Vänsterpartiet.
The last few years has seen the expulsion of two or three members who
voted with the bourgeois parties - against the will of the regional party board
and parliamentary group.
8. Do the (Radical) Left parties in your country have a separate Youth organization?
What is the structural relationship between them? What is the average age among
membership?
There is a youth organization called Ung vänster (the “Young Left”). They are
politically and organizationally - both formally and in practice - independent
but rely to a large extent on economic support from Vänsterpartiet. Average
membership age would be about 15-20, and leadings members usually a bit
older around 18-25. There is also a Left Party student organization, called
Vänsterns studentförbund, that fills up the gap between Ung vänster and
Vänsterpartiet.
9. How would you describe the relations between the (Radical) Left parties in your country
with trade-unions and social movements? Is there respect of their autonomy? Are parties’
members encouraged to participate in them? Are the (Radical) Left parties in your country
influenced and in what respect with their co-existence with social movements?
The Swedish trade unions traditionally have very close bonds to the Social
democratic Party (SAP) through the so-called “union-political cooperation”
that until 1990 meant that a member of the LO/TUC automatically became a
member of the SAP, if not explicitly refusing this. Even though this system is
no longer in effect and the last years have seen a decline of LO/TUC-votes
for socialdemocracy (mostly on behalf of a shift to the right) there is still a
strong connection between the SAP and the biggest unions. For example the
LO/TUC leader automatically becomes part of the executive committee of
the SAP and they also massively sponsor the SAP election campaign. This
means that the unions are by and large socialdemocrats at the top with a few
rank-and-file exceptions leaning somewhat more to the left, and therefore in
more or less of a conflict with the leadership. With the explicit wish of
becoming a more massbased party there have been attempts from
Vänsterpartiet to cater more to union requests, primarily those in the public
sector. But there is full respect for union autonomy, or to put it another way,
there is neither any possibility nor desire of Vänsterpartiet to direct union
policy. The political mindset is more of using the union ties as a gauge to
formulate political demands that could resonate within broader layers of the
working class. There are specific organizations within the party that ties to
union activity, for example “Left Party public sector workers” and they try to
act as an intermediate link between the party and workplace union activity.
With regards to social movements the attempts to favor the unions have in
practice led to a clearly higher priority on trade unions, compared to other
social movements. Though explicitly stating the desire to be a “social
movement party” there is weak structured activity och organizational
strategies on the party level on how to improve cooperation with or
participate in work in social movements, with the exceptions. Trade union
cooperation recieves largest part of resources on national level for such
cooperation, even so those resocurces are also limited, compared to the
partys total resources. There is of course a crisscross of organizing on behalf
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of individual party members, and Vänsterpartiet parliementary representatives
feminst, green, refuge, solidarity and other social movements. But as a party
structure there is weak connection with other social movements.
Besides the argument on union social movements referred earlier this is
could also be attributed to the animosity between Vänsterpartiet and groups
and parties on the far left. Other groups are generally viewed as radicalistic
factions that could hamper Vänsterpartiet’s ability to gain massive voter
support.
10. Do structure, internal life and functioning of the (Radical) Left parties in your country
reflect the changes in European societies made in recent decades (i.e. precarious employment,
the new role of women, increased presence of immigrants etc)? Please comment.
As stated below, Vänsterpartiet has a high degree of both immigrant and
women representation, which could be attributed both to its standing as a
feminist and antiracist party and to a strong standing in the suburbs which in
Sweden has a higher percentage of immigrants than the inner city.
Vänsterpartiet is also strong within the public sector employees and since they
traditionally and still today comprise of a higher percentage of women this
translates to a large support from women. It is also an explicit strategy as a
feminist and antiracist party to be aware of the development of
precariousness, which to a high degree comes by way of a precarisation of
the jobs traditionally done by women and immigrants. There is somewhat of
a conflict between this realization and the ambition, stated above, to be a
party for the broader layers of the larger trade unions. In the internal party
debate there is some criticism that to side with precarious workers only
means to become a party only for the “weak” and those stricken by the
recent cutbacks, which could then come into conflict with being a party for
the middle of the working class. To sum up the party membership and
representation in itself reflects the change, with its high degree of women
and immigrant participation, but it has also come into conflict with more
traditional ideas about the role of a radical Left Party.
11. What is the proportion of women in the (Radical) Left parties of your country? Are
women adequately represented in the structure of the parties of (Radical) Left in your
country? Please comment.
In the national parliament, Vänsterpartiet has the highest number of female
MEP, where 11 of 19 MEP or 61% are women.
12. What is the percentage of migrants participating in the (Radical) Left parties of your
country?
Vänsterpartiet has the highest percentage of immigrants on their election lists
for both national and municipal parliament; at 15% Vänsterpartiet is 2 or 3 %
higher than nr2, but still below the 16% level of immigrants in the Swedish
population.
13. Following experience from the way parties of the (Radical) Left function in your
country, what is your opinion regarding their internal democracy situation? Which are the
main problems and what should be done to face them?
There is a ongoing debate about a democratic deficit as the result of
democratic centralism and the fact that the congress sometimes votes on
things that the executive committee deems politically impossible and
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therefore just ignores. Since there is little interface between grassroots
activity and the parliamentary representation besides the congress debates
and votes there is dissatisfaction with the democratic situation. This became
all the more clear with the election alliance between Vänsterpartiet, Miljöpartiet
(the Green party) and the Social democrats which lead to most issues being
handled within closed working groups and then just presented to the
members who had to mobilize for an election on issues they hadn’t been able
to debate or decide on.
New forms of political debate and participation should be invented and is
continuously being tried on congress meetings, on the internet and so on.
14. How attractive or non-attractive are parties of the (Radical) Left in your country and
for what reasons? What measures would you suggest that they should take in order to be
more attractive in the future?
With some conjunctural exceptions, Vänsterpartiet has had on average 5% of
the vote in the national elections, and the current situation does not promise
a bigger vote in the coming election.
The latest exception was in 1998. The social democrates had then for three
years made massive cutbacks in social welfare systems, weakend labour
legislation and enforced a "yes" in a highly controversial EU-membership
referendum, creating a huge strain in connections with the labour movement
and traditional voters. Vänsterpartiet effectively took advantage of the
situation with a somewhat Left populist rethoric, which, combined with a
charismatic party leader (Gudrun Schyman). Thus in 1998, Vänsterpartiet
gained 12%. Schyman subsequently left the party and formed the party
Feministiskt initiativ and probably took a chunk (if not more than 0,5-1%) of
feminist voters with her. There is in Sweden also the general tendency as in
all of Europe with a faltering social democracy, in Sweden at its lowest vote
since universal suffrage, a growth of the greens and a xenophobic populist
party in parliament. As far as the polling can be deduced, Vänsterpartiet is no
longer clearly seen as the feminist party in the eyes of the voters. The growth
of the greens has also lost the Left party some progressive voters, generally
urban middle classes who now feel that the climate issue is the most pressing
one.
If the polling is anything to go by, Vänsterpartiet is lacking a clear identity
besides being the party that shows solidarity with the weak and stricken, and
the redgreen alliance surely didn’t help in defining a unique identity. There is
no clear issue that is “owned” by Vänsterpartiet in the same way that
Feministiskt initiativ or the greens in Miljöpartiet have there specific
connotations, and in a centrist political discourse this means the voters are
pressed to say why they should vote for a 5% party when a vote for the
Social democrats or the Greens could be more of a factor in shaping policy.
15. Do you think that parties of the (Radical) Left in your country are appropriate
instruments for the transformation of society? What are the positive aspects of their
structure and functioning which should be retained and improved and what should be
radically changed?
After the last election, won by the right, there was a surge of new members
into Vänsterpartiet. The new members consisted both of people who hadn’t
been politically active and of people who had been organized in social
movements but felt that the right wing government was becoming too big of
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a problem for general welfare to be able to ignore the elections. This points
to a strength of Vänsterpartiet in contrast to social movements, in that it’s long
history and clear standing as a parliamentary force made it a more likely
oppositional force to combat the right wing policies of the government.
When people needed somewhere to turn to, Vänsterpartiet seemed like the
most stable alternative. This is what makes the party a credible defending
force for general welfare and against cutbacks. But at the same time, a
summing up of the history of the last 25 years does not show a great deal of
results for all the effort put out. The problem with being a 5% party is having
to compromise too much in times of governing, and ending up stating that
“well it would have been worse if it hadn’t been for us”.
16. What is the social structure (peasants, public and private sector workers and
employees, professionals, jobless, students etc) of the voters and members of the (Radical)
Left parties in your country? Are there any recent available studies on this issue? Please
comment.
There is an ongoing survey on voter attitudes and backgrounds that has been
analysed by the professor of political science at the Göteborg university,
Henrik Ekengren Oskarsson.
There is still a strong working class bias within the electorate, where half the
party electorate defining themselves as either workers or workers in a
leadership position – as opposed to 33% within the general electorate
average. All figures here given in contrast to the average electorate. The
reverse goes for whitecollar workers, where there is a lower percentage than
in the general electorate. There is also an electoral bias in favor of people
with low income, 3% more than the average, and -6% for people with high
income. There is 10% more voters out of people working in the public sector
and 11% more of LO/TUC members. Within people aged 18-30 there is a
high degree of unemployed, 12% of the group which is 5% than average and
also students, 6% more than average at 42%.
11% of the total Vänsterpartiet votes are comprised of students, which is 4%
above average, where pedagogy and social science/psychology being the
biggest two at 11% and 9% respectively. Vänsterpartiet has the highest
percentage of voters born outside of Europe of any Swedish party at 4% and
7% within second-generation immigrants, which is 3% above the average.
And lastly, Vänsterpartiet has the highest degree of politically interested voters
at 71% of the party’s total vote, and also the strongest party identification
where 37% of the voters consider themselves as followers of the party.
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