How I voted in Swedish elections

As a resident, non-Swedish citizen, I got to vote in both Stockholms commune and county council elections, but not for parliamentary candidates. It came as a pleasant surprise: I have the democratic right to choose how my city will be run, but now how the country is run, i.e. I am a resident of Stockholm city, but not a citizen of Sweden, which makes perfect sense. It is little wonder that Sweden was recently acclaimed by Newsweek as having the healthiest political system in the world today.

The tough part is choosing who to vote for. Traditionally, Sweden is a social-democratic country, i.e. leftist, labor. But during the past four years, it has been run by the center-right coalition. New comers such as the far-right, anti-immigrant, Sweden democrats have gained much momentum during the past few years, and are much likely to make a parliamentary debut, when all is said and done by the end of this month.

Voting strategically would mean that I'd vote for the coalition that is most likely to win and form a majority government, in this case being the center-right coalition. I must admit I do like their small and medium business incentives, and their rather half successful attempts at cutting red tape in a very technocratic system.

Voting morally I find myself closest to the Green Party, which went into alliance with the Social Democrats and the Left Party. Unlike the last two, the Greens are creative, full of new ideas, and possess a huge drive to modernize Sweden (not that it is not modern, but all for the best). The problem with the Social Democrats is that they are stuck in old habits, old rhetorics, and assume that everyone knows what they're all about, where they themselves seem to have lost touch with modern day Sweden and still talk in ideals long over exhausted. The left is all about solidarity but barely offer any pragmatism.

More recently, I found Swedish parties and coalitions (all grown up in a social democratic society) coming closer to each other, and for that matter, to the center. The distance between the right wing and the left wing is much narrower, and way to the left, than US republicans and democrats. The European ideals of taking care of the citizen from cradle to grave shapes the politics of all Swedish parties alike, and there's no notion of free economy and personal liberties above all, despite that having a strong social welfare system, makes citizens as individualistic as could be.

When I balanced my opinions, I found myself leaning mostly towards creativity - I wanted to vote for a party with creative solutions to stagnant problems. A party who thinks outside the box, one whose agenda makes common sense. And just before I made my way to the ballot box, the Greens announced that they are ready to engage in collaboration with the center-right if their coalition won, despite that the Greens are aligned with the left.

The choice was relatively easy, I went for the Greens, in my first vote ever.