S dismisses Tidö 2 negotiations openly - "Highly inappropriate"

One of the clearest red threads of the election campaign was the recurring positioning of all parties against each other and red lines for where the borders are. This has also continued during the eight weeks that have passed since election day.

Last Friday, it was the SD leader Jimmie Åkesson who announced that the demand for ministerial positions in a bourgeois government can be dropped, but that then one goes into full opposition. Now on Sunday morning, Magdalena Andersson announces that S would "go in full opposition to a "Tidö 2 government and not participate in any negotiations with such a government constellation".

- That is the big problem here - that all parties choose to make much of these negotiations and signaling public. It causes quite a lot when the parties think that the election campaign will continue and that they make it so public, says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg.

His opinion is that the public statements risk locking the positions, that it becomes more difficult to budge on one's positions when they are nailed down in front of an open curtain. Had it instead been done behind closed doors, the necessary compromises could even have been presented as partial victories.

- There are a lot of theories about coalition formation, and this is not the first time in world history that coalitions are formed after elections. Much of that knowledge clashes quite significantly with what we see happening here. It is highly inappropriate, says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson.

The primary objective of the parties is of course to get as much of their policy through as possible, not least because that is the responsibility they have towards their voters. But with this public method, you don't get down to what Ekengren Oscarsson describes as a craft level.

- All this compromising and bumping issues with each other, the bartering that has to happen. It is not possible to tell in public where one's political pain limits are and that is the first thing you learn in politics to always have room for negotiation, says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson.

He takes Germany as an example and describes it succinctly as the parties there disappearing into radio silence while they negotiate the formation of a government. There is an election result and then it's just to like the situation, instead of painting yourself into different corners for public opinion.

- You have a task as a political leader and that is to form stable majorities behind government policy, to find win-win-win solutions. From a negotiation, all parties must leave with the feeling that they got more than what the others got and it would be much easier if it wasn't done in public, says Ekengren Oscarsson.

Like several other observers, he refrains from speculating on how the formation of the government will end. According to political science, he points out, all coalition theories speak for the 187-seat five-party solution S, C, KD, MP and L as the most likely, but it was tested last week by Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist with the outcome "crash and burn".

- There are many ways to combine those 187 mandates depending on which are to be support or government parties. Then it is a lot about substantive politics such as how the nuclear power issue or migration policy should be resolved. But on the concrete level we are not, but now it's about who puts up with whom, says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson.

- One can only hope that what we see is a chamber game and that there are actually adult discussions going on that the rest of us are not allowed to take part in.