The Social Democrats' election campaign was characterized by confusion and failed communication

On one side, chaos and extremism threaten, on the other, order and normality loom. The dividing line between the two is whether it is 13- or 14-year-olds who are to be put in prison.

That's roughly how you can summarize the Social Democrats' election campaign. It is perhaps no surprise that voters had a hard time absorbing such subtleties.

Because S has undeniably made a magnificently unsuccessful election campaign. At the beginning of the year, Magdalena Andersson's party was around 35 percent in the opinion polls, and party members began to dream of a return to the old days. Since then, in just nine months, every fifth sympathizer has left.

The fact that both the Left Party and above all the Center Party during the same time have made considerable progress does not by any means outweigh the S race. That a Prime Minister Andersson, at the time of this writing, only has a three-mandate majority for a possible government with all but the Tidö parties - and cannot at all get together the majority with C, MP and KD that both she herself and the center parties have pointed out as an attractive alternative - is therefore entirely her own fault and that of the Social Democrats.

Since the turn of the year, every fifth S sympathizer has left

If you looked in the election manifesto, you could certainly find substantive political S-proposals, such as abolishing the retirement allowance and adding up the state subsidies to the municipalities with inflation. The latter is a technical but huge proposal, as all municipalities know who were forced to panic save in welfare during the inflationary years at the beginning of this mandate. But how did S intend to pay for it? And how clearly was the promise communicated to voters?

Instead, the overall S strategy seems to have been to capitalize on people's dissatisfaction with Tidö, while at the same time the party in central issues got as close to the government as possible.

Take the teenage expulsions. The Social Democrats thus voted for the rules that caused Sweden, among other things, to expel young nursing students to the misogynistic theocracy in Iran. This despite the referral bodies warning that exactly that would happen. And when the expected result came, that teenagers and young adults began to be deported alone to countries where they might not even know the language, the S leadership stood by the decision until an internal storm of criticism forced a change of course.

So how will S now handle the fact that they made their worst election result ever? Since Magdalena Andersson still seems capable of forming a government, I unfortunately do not think we can expect any deeper self-examination. On election night, the S leader declared that "the future of the Social Democratic Labor Party is bright". Well, that remains to be seen.

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