It also, by some linguistic jiggery-pokery, means election rhetoric.
Today Sweden had its election orgasm after a ridiculously long and drawn out build up consisting of being hit in the face by valfläsk repeatedly. Valfäsk here looks like a bald man, a tired pockfaced porky man and a young bespectacled man, none of whom should ever be used, ever, in an analogy describing sex.
There are, in fact, a lot more than 3 parties in Sweden. Here everybody loves the little parties. But the people who get the most airtime are, organised helpfully by which side they represent,
The leader of the biggest leftist party (Stefan Löfven)
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| I'm awesome because I have a red tie |
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| I'm awesome despite my red tie |
The leader of the racist Sweden Democrats party (Jimmy Åkesson)
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| I'm Åwesome becåse I håve ån Å in my nåme |
I don't want to scare away my readers with all the millions and billions (ok, slight exaggeration) of other small parties, but needless to say there are many, of whom some of the biggest are the Feminists, the Greens, the People's party (not socialist) the Pirates (not actual pirates) the centreparty (actually farmers) and the Left party. For the last few years, Sweden has had a coalition of right wing parties in power who, unlike the coalition in England that was a divisive failure, actually agreed on several things. Much to the chagrin of lefties överallt.
Aaaaanyway. I don't want to sound like I know anything about politics here because I actually know fuck ALL. The only thing I can say is that I've seen a lot of crap posted around town on billboards (My personal favourite VOTE FOR SCHOOLS! because hey, those people who think "I'm going to vote against schools" need some persuading). There has been a lot of debate about whether the racist party should have the right to advertise their racist ideas, and this has lead to Jimmy ÅÅÅÅÅÅkesson's face being plastered all over the news every day, and in my blog, while people ask that question repeatedly. He therefore made it into my top 3 people who you hear about during elections. Damn, somebody get me JÅÅÅÅÅ's PA guy!
The other big issues have been schools ("Let's throw more money at them and not really think about raising training standards!!") Nuclear power (Close them! Make them better! What about turbines! Uranium! Solar cells! Incomprehensible oneupmanship!) Old people (Give them better food in their old people's homes, that'll quiet 'em down!!) building Stockholm for the oncoming hoards (what colour should the new tube line be!!!! Lets put some parks in the ghettos, make 'em better!) and immigration (They're great, they do all our shitty jobs for us!)
VOTING
Voting here is in some ways very efficient. In other ways, not so much.
For instance, I got a voting card in the post so that I could make my choice in the local elections, not the general, despite only living here a year. I didn't have to register in any way, like I do in England even though I was born there, I just got the vote card through the letterbox with instructions of where to go.
But.
When you toddle on down to the school where they've set up a poll station, there are lots of cards laid out for you to choose by the door (see pic above.) These cards each have the name of the party you want to vote for at the top. This for me is an incredibly open system where anyone can see which party's card you're taking and leaves you open to the possibility that someone can remark upon your choice. In England you take a poll card with every single name and party and set a cross by the one you want while in the privacy of the booth, so nobody can see who you chose. I much prefer this system.
Don't worry if you're a n00b with no idea what you're doing, a handy poster tells you what to do. Unless you're me and you take the card to the poll booth and, after seeing the poster, still stand there like an idiot not knowing what to do. In my case, there were around 30 names on the party card, and I didn't know how to vote for none of them. Fortunately I did the right thing and simply placed the card with no pen marks into an envelope. This felt weird, as you always have to mark your ballot in England otherwise it's meaningless. I also forgot to seal the envelopes before handing them to the people at the desk, who looked at me like I had no idea what I was doing. Which I didn't.
Voila. First election in Sweden (not so deftly) handled. Now can they please clean up all the valfläsk that's lying in the streets, I'm sick of their stupid faces and empty slogans. (Some things are the same the whole world over.)
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