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DE RUEHSM #0355/01 1611342
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 101342Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY STOCKHOLM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4411
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 STOCKHOLM 000355 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT PLEASE PASS TO USTR FOR DAVID WEINER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL ECON KIPR SW
SUBJECT:  AARGH! SWEDISH PIRATES SET SAIL FOR BRUSSELS 
 
¶1.  Summary and Comment: Sweden's two largest political parties, the 
ruling Moderates and opposition Social Democrats, saw little change 
over their 2004 levels of support in the June 7 European Parliament 
(EP) election here.  Instead, the Greens and the pro-EU Liberal 
Party were the big winners -- along with the new Pirate Party, which 
found support from young voters unhappy with the government's 
decision to shut down The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing bit torrent 
site that had become a target of the Motion Picture Association of 
America (and USTR).  The anti-EU Left Party, on the other hand, 
suffered catastrophic losses.  Overall, voter turnout was up in the 
month before Sweden takes over the rotating Presidency of the 
Council of the European Union, but at 43.8% still far below the 
regular 80% turnout for national elections.  Comment: The EP 
election outcome has little predictive power for next year's 
parliamentary elections, given the self-selecting nature of those 
willing to go out and vote for Members of the European Parliament 
(MEPs).  Perhaps the main lesson for the larger parties relates to 
the need to court the youth vote in more effective ways.  End 
Summary and Comment. 
 
The Results 
----------- 
 
¶2.  Sweden's EP election was a bit disappointing for the two largest 
parties, the Moderates (18.8% of the vote and 4 MEP seats) and the 
Social Democrats (24.6% and five seats).  Although both parties 
matched the figures received in 2004, they did not manage any gains 
despite active campaigning.  Rather, the Greens (10.9% and two 
seats) and the Liberal Party (13.6% and three seats) were the big 
winners.  The Left Party suffered disastrous defeats; the party 
dropped to 5.6%, compared to 12.8% in 2004, and now has one seat. 
The Centre Party (5.5% and one seat) and the Christian Democrats 
(4.7% and one seat), both part of the four-party ruling coalition, 
performed slightly worse than in 2004, though both surpassed the 4% 
threshold necessary to qualify for a seat.  The elections attracted 
more voters than in 2004, with turnout up 6.7% to 43.8%, 
differentiating Sweden from other Member States' downward trend. 
 
Victory for the Pirate Party 
---------------------------- 
 
¶3.  The big winner was the Pirate Party -- which campaigned on 
reformation of copyright and patent law and opposition to a 
wiretapping law proposed by the Swedish security services.  The 
Pirates secured a whopping 7.1% and one seat in Parliament.  The 
party, founded in January 2006, attracted young voters angry over 
the guilty verdict in the Pirate Bay trial, the unpopular EU Ipred 
directive, and new national laws criminalizing file sharing and 
authorizing monitoring of emails.  The party has not yet announced 
what EP party group it would like to belong to, and the current 
thinking espoused by Pirates is that the classic political 
right-left scale is outdated.  Rather, the Pirates see themselves as 
an historic movement analogous to working-class and the green 
movements.  The party is now looking to negotiate with both the 
liberal ALDE group and the Greens/EFA group. 
 
¶4.  A side effect of the Pirates' success is that it most likely 
reduced the chances for the far-right nationalist Sweden Democrats 
to gain representation in the EP.  The Pirates have some of the same 
voter base -- young men with mistrust for politicians.  Although the 
Sweden Democrats tripled their results to 3.3%, up from 1.1% in 
2004, they remain below the threshold for representation in either 
the EP or Swedish Parliament.  In any case, the Pirate's landslide 
among younger voters caught the attention of the larger parties, our 
contacts tell us, who are now scrambling to come up with policies to 
woo the youth back to the mainstream. 
 
Personalities Rule 
------------------ 
 
¶5.  Over all, the four party governing center-right Alliance won 
with 42.6% of vote and nine seats over the leftist opposition with 
41.1% and eight seats.  For what was essentially a mid-term election 
in Sweden, the continued strong showing for the ruling coalition 
suggests to some of our contacts no loss of momentum going into next 
year's general elections.  Others note that parties with clear and 
positive EU policies, like the Greens and the Liberals, did 
surprisingly well, while the euro-skeptics suffered.  But those who 
could be bothered to vote in EP elections on the first sunny day in 
several weeks were likely a self-selecting group with pro-EU views, 
not necessarily representative of the wider Swedish public. 
 
¶6.  Results of the preference vote - where voters can mark the 
candidate they would prefer to be elected - came out June 10. 
Strong and charismatic personalities have overtaken the top 
candidates proposed by each of the parties.  To be elected on a 
total number of preference votes, a candidate must have received at 
least 5% of the votes cast for the party.  Alf Svensson, former 
leader of the Christian Democrats, and Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, the 
wife of Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, were nominated low on their 
respective parties' lists but will now claim seats in parliament. 
 
STOCKHOLM 00000355  002 OF 002 
 
 
 
HILTON