Ett utländskt perspektiv

Följande artikel är saxad från den internationellt finansiella tidningen The Economist, 12 oktober, som sätter regeringens första vecka i ett utländskt perspektiv.


A flying start — and minor scandals — for Sweden’s centre-right government

WHO said Swedish politics was grey and boring? The new centre-right government includes the first black and the first openly gay ministers in Sweden’s history, as well as the first male pony-tail. The prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, is aged only 41. He is his country’s youngest prime minister in 80 years.

Burying a previously prickly relationship, Mr Reinfeldt has also appointed a predecessor, Carl Bildt, as foreign minister. Prime minister until 1994, Mr Bildt has since then become his country’s foreign-policy heavyweight, serving as the European Union’s man in Bosnia-Herzegovina and as the United Nations’ Balkan envoy. He has passionately championed further EU enlargement, not least on his prolific blog. Its fans hope protocol will not cloak his powerful intellect and sharp pen.

Mr Reinfeldt has also parachuted in some lively minds from outside politics. Cecilia Stego Chilo, who runs Timbro, a free-market think-tank, has gained the culture ministry. Her bracing remarks about the need for more entrepreneurship in the world of culture have terrified a pampered cultural world long dependent on taxpayer handouts.

Even more infuriating for the country’s leftist establishment was the choice of a Burundi-born Swede, Nyamko Sabuni, as minister for integration and equality. Herself a model of integration and proficiency in Swedish, Ms Sabuni wants compulsory medical checks of schoolgirls for genital mutilation, and prosecutions of parents who inflict it.

The front bench also includes probably the world’s first pony-tailed finance minister, Anders Borg (inside his head, he’s an ultra-solid banker), and as trade minister a prominent technophile science journalist, Maria Borelius.

All of these new faces send a strong signal to Swedes that something new is under way. Unluckily for Mr Reinfeldt, his first week in the job was tainted by a whiff of scandal. Ms Borelius admitted she had dodged taxes by paying her nanny cash-in-hand. Ms Stego Chilo, whose portfolio includes public-sector broadcasting, confessed to having failed to pay her television licence for 16 years.

Mr Reinfeldt faced down whoops of disapproval from the opposition Social Democrats. As leader of the first majority government since 1981, he can afford to ride over a few bumps.

The Economist