Nicke Grahn sees himself as the country's happiest election loser, despite the fact that local support has collapsed and that he is now losing the municipal councilor post in the previously strong L stronghold of Dorotea, in southern Lapland.
On a national level, he is not as satisfied, despite the fact that he sits on the party board for the Liberals, who have just passed the Riksdag barrier after a historic election spurt.
- Neither the Liberals nor any other parliamentary party offers solutions to our actual problems. Everyone has moved to town. There is a total political vacuum in the countryside.
He nods towards Systembolaget on the other side of the road from the municipal hall.
- There we have our only state presence in Dorotea. And sure, the police are open for two hours on Tuesdays too, but I guess we have about one residential burglary every two years so it's hardly the biggest problem.
Dorotea is one of the country's smallest municipalities in terms of population – spread over an area as large as Blekinge.
Here, the focus is on the right to basic social services, he explains. Not national election issues like school choice, gang crime and welfare gains.
- You don't win votes by talking loftily about human views and ideologies with someone who lacks access to an ambulance and mobile phone coverage for the security alarm, or who can't drive the kids to training.
- The best way to take the fuel out of populist parties is simply to offer basic service. If society works, they lose their breeding ground.
Nicke Grahn is clear that it is not about "passive rural whining" and waiting for Stockholm to solve the problems.
- On the contrary, he exclaims.
- But if you have done your duty and shown the ability to act, you can also claim your right.
He takes us past the infirmary that was saved after a high-profile occupation and on to the country's only tent factory of its kind. One of the municipality's major employers, where co-owner Leena Berg testifies that people looking for jobs have started to show a genuine interest in living in Dorotea in a way she has never experienced before.
On the way back, we pass the caravan manufacturer Polarvagnen, which after another local struggle is still alive, and in a playground behind Ica, a mother hangs out with her daughter in the municipality that Unicef has named Sweden's best for families with children.
- It is a fairly healthy attitude to do what you can first before making demands. And many in this area have shown that time and time again, says Nicke Grahn.
Just before the election, the SOM institute at the University of Gothenburg released a report that puts numbers on the conditions of the countryside.
• 82 percent in the survey think that public services should be run close to people, even if it entails higher costs.
• Over half of the respondents from Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö agree with the statement that too much is invested in the big cities.
- It's not that people in rural areas suddenly see a school being closed or street lights being turned off, but that's how it's been for decades. Now people are starting to react to it, says Louise Skoog, political scientist at Umeå University.
She is co-author of a chapter in the SOM institute's report which shows that every fifth SD voter does not support the party because of the immigration issue, but in protest against geographic injustice. This corresponds to almost 4 percent of the entire electorate, which means that in an even election the group can be decisive for the outcome.
But so far, no party has succeeded in channeling and gathering the dissatisfaction that clearly exists, she explains. The Liberals' voters live, for example, in affluent areas around big cities, and over time the Center Party has also become a more urban party.
- The parties have a tendency to focus on what happens in the cities because that is where the vast majority of voters are.
Nicke Grahn is convinced that a new kind of Norrland party similar to the Scottish National Party (SNP) will be formed during the coming term.
- Something equivalent to a mixture of provincial social democracy, free-spirited liberalism and classic Thorbjörn Fälldin center partyism. A center party that, among other things, pushes issues such as return on natural resources.
However, he will not leave the Liberals to start such a movement himself.
- No, but I am absolutely certain that a new party of this kind will enter the Riksdag by 2034 at the latest if this trend continues.
