He is also the nephew of Sauli Niinistö, current speaker of Finnish Eduskunta, former Minister of Finance and a shoo-in for President (though he has repeatedly excluded himself). In the fairly clean political world of Finland (if there is any money sloshing around it's chump change), Sauli Niinistö is squeaky clean and highly competent. While Ville is green and Sauli is blue, I'd be interested to know how much influence the uncle has had.

You can't be me, I'm taken

Huh!? On first count, those are just laid to the side or what?

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Looks like we might be back to the six scearii...

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Swedish voters narrowly re-elected the governing centre-right Alliance coalition, but stopped short of giving it another majority, while the far-right Sweden Democrats were voted into parliament for the first time.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's coalition government won 49.1 percent of the vote, while the left-wing opposition won 45.1 percent of the vote, with the Sweden Democrats garnered 4.6 percent, enough to enter parliament, exit polls by Swedish public television company SVT showed.

If the poll accurately reflects the final result, the Greens would be the third-largest party in parliament with 9 percent of support, up 3.8 percent, followed by the Liberal Party (7.2 percent), Centre Party (7.1 percent), both of whom lost support by less than a percentage point, and the Left Party at 6.1 percent. Support for the Christian Democrats also slipped to 5.7 percent.

I'm wondering where the Greens are going to pick-up that 3% exit polling gave 'em.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Alliance = 49%
Left Block = 43.6%

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

SVT's Exit Poll:

Moderates: 29.1 percent
Liberals: 7.2
Centre Party: 7.1
Christian Democrats: 5.7
Social Democrats: 30.0
Left Party: 6.1
Greens: 9.0
Sweden Democrats: 4.6
Others: 1.2

TV4's Exit Poll:

Moderates: 27.2 percent
Liberals: 6.9
Centre Party: 7.0
Christian Democrats: 7.1
Social Democrats: 32.7
Left Party: 5.9
Greens: 7.8
Sweden Democrats: 4.1
Others: 1.3

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Swedish Democrats holding the balance for the Alliance with 5.9%.  

This is going to be tight.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

155 Red-Greens
174 Alliance
20 Sweden Democrats

Meaning the Alliance is 1 seat short of a majority.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Less than a point swing in the few remaining districts could tilt the election giving Alliance a one seat majority.  

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Alliance:

Lost 6 seats:

Moderata Samlingspartiet + 10 for 107
Centerpartiet -7 for 22
Kristdemokraterna -5 for 19
Folkpartiet liberalerna - 4 for 24

Left Block:

Lost 14 seats:

Arbetarepartiet-Socialdemokraterna -17 for 113
Vänsterpartiet  - 3 for 19
Miljöpartiet de gröna + 6 for 25 and became the 3rd largest party in the Riksdag

The big winner was the Sverigedemokraterna who went from no seats to 20 and increased their vote from 2.9% to 5.7%.  They also, I'm guessing, effectively blocked Alliance from maintaining their majority as they went from 178 to 172.

From the Usual Suspect:

Moderate Party leader and prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said he plans to approach the Green Party for support in forming a government and he "hopes they are responsive" to his overtures.

Although earlier this evening:

Green Party co-spokesman Peter Eriksson reiterated that his party will not work with the Alliance to form a majority government, but left the door open for possible cooperation with the Liberal and Centre Parties, calling them "natural" partners.

"It is not realistic," Eriksson told The Local after he and co-spokeswoman Maria Wetterstrand addressed the rapturous crowd at the party's election headquarters on Sunday. "We have very good politics with the Red-Green parties. There is a very big difference with the Alliance."

The Liberal, Center, and Greens have a total of 71 seats so they provide the majority for either the Moderate or Social Democrats to form a government.  

Meanwhile, the Moderate Party is screwed as long as the Greens refuse to join the coalition.  Alliance doesn't have the seats unless they rope in the Swedish Democrats AND keep the Center AND Liberals in the coalition.  From what I'm reading: Lot's o' Luck.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Does not look like we will pick up any local seat either. Around 1% in strong cities (ie university towns) and about 2-3% is needed for a seat. Crap crap.

And those damn racists got into parliament, meaning that we will get stuff like burka-bans suggested by the other parties in futile attempts to steal their votes. Crap crap crap.

Gotta sleep now.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

... election officials don't know exactly how many advance Riksdag ballots have been cast, but there were around 100,000 in the last election in 2006.

Currently, the Alliance coalition needs 7,100 more votes to attain an overall majority of votes cast. If the centre-right would receive, say, 60,000 of around 100,000 outstanding uncounted ballots, then they would have an overall majority in the number of votes.

NZ's 120 seat parliament is elected in a system somewhat similar to Sweden's (PR with a 5% cut-off)

There hasn't been a one-party majority for a while. There have been colourful and entertaining negotiations, generally involving centrist parties changing camps. The last election was close, and the current government is a strikingly odd coalition : the main right-wing party with a small far-right coalition partner, and a confidence-and-supply agreement with the Maori Party. They had been part of the left bloc, and sold out in exchange for some specific policy areas. (the Greens had half-heartedly considered some sort of arrangement, but it was never going to fly)

Just saying...

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

If this is true the Left Block is screwed in a couple of different ways, along several different axises.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre