On cnn.com I noticed this story about how quite a few countries congratulated Bush after the networks declared him the winner last night, only to have to backpedal when everyone realized it was too close to call. While I suppose it’s mildly embarrassing for the countries involved, especially if Gore ends up winning, I figure it’s no big deal. If the networks had predicted Gore as the winner, they would have been congratulating him. The warm wishes are just a matter of being polite.
However, the last sentence of the story reads:
This intrigued me, and I looked around to see if I could find what the government of Sweden actually said, and why they might have said it, but I couldn’t turn anything up. Anyone have the info on this? It would be naive to think that the governments of various countries might not prefer one canidate over another, but it seems rather bad form to express your sorrow that a guy you’re going to have to work with for at least four years happened to win.
Yeah, I read the same thing, and I have two explanations, and a third theory:
From personal experience, I can unequivocably state that Swedes have excellent taste in things American.
Sweden is a very progressive/liberal society. Bush is very regressive/conservative. Those are two very basic opposites, and I can certainly see where their government would oppose a Bush ascendancy.
(WAG) Bush’s foreign policy ideas are rather unpopular there.
Paging Anniz, flodnak, Skümmet, and other Scandinavian Dopers…
This may have nothing to do with Sweeden, but I will answer it anyway. While I was having a nice business lunch in Rouen, France, a few weeks ago, we got to talking about politics.
My lunchmates basically were against Bush because they perceived him as being very pro death penalty, and that he has had so many people in Texas executed.
Anyway, I think most of Europe thinks that Bush is “less-civilized” than Gore. (I think that offering the NBMD without consulting them probably ticked them off, too.)
“Dears Mrr Busches,
-As a peoples we are being very happily of this country yours, being you are rich and we send cars and, bicycle racks and, other things of these types for you to pay us. If you were to being like us more civilian we thinks, you would be seeing benefit of being good Socialilsts and good peoples, but not so rich. We are so, happily and sadder. -Siined, Sweden”
I’m not pro-Bush, and I’m anti-death-penalty. But I do live in Texas, and I like to clear up misunderstandings where I can…
A) Bush can’t “have somebody executed”. This is a penalty imposed in a court trial.
B) Bush also can’t commute anyone’s sentence once they’ve been sentenced to death. Well, he can if the Texas Board of <something> recommends it, but this almost never happens.
C) Gore is just as pro-death-penalty as Bush is. That’s one reason why this issue didn’t come up in this last election (except on late-nite TV, for laughs.)
First, I’m from Sweden and I’m also hoping on Gore to win.
I have searched the Swedish newpapers on the net
and also read my morning news paper
and there is nothing about it there.
The only thing I’ve heard was on the tv news,
where our Preminister said that he hoped for Gore to win.
That’s all.
I can’t see anything wrong in that,
since The Democratics party are closer to The Socialist
party here than to The Republican.
This came up in one of the debates, mostly having to do with Bush’s opposition of a Hate Crimes law in Texas. He was beaming as he explained that all three of James Byrd, Jr.'s murderers received the death penalty for their act. Of course, he lied because only two of the three did: the third copped a plea to testify against the other two.
But, anyway, I think Europe as a whole looks down at the barbaric practice of capital punishment in the US, and the Swedes are the only one with the balls to publicly not kiss Bush’s ass.
And, sailor, the OP was about Sweden’s reaction to the election, not their influence. Although, the election may influence my reaction to Sweden.
I knew that the Governor’s actual power in death penalty cases is limited. They were very skeptical when I mentioned that Bush was from a weak-governor state. In fact I brought up many of those arguments when talking to my lunchmates. However, I did not want this to end up in GD, so I just gave their opinion.
I definitely have the impression that most Scandinavians, and indeed most Europeans, would rather that Gore won the election than Bush. The perception is that foreign policy wouldn’t change much under Gore, while Bush would follow a more isolationist line. With all the changes going on in the world, Europe would rather have the US as an active participant than as a spectator.
There are other things, too, of course, but I think this is the most important.
The reason being that he is the lesser of two evils. From a Swedish party politics point of view I’d say that Gore is way out on the right wing and Bush even more so.
As the late Swedish Prime minister Olof Palme once put it (although I don’t remember the context): It’s a choice between bubonic plague and cholera
The Swedish CNN homepage directly quotes the Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, as preferring Gore to Bush.
For the Swedish-impaired, some of the quotes VERY roughly translates as:
also:
and finally:
Note: I am neither a translator nor a Swede, and Mr. Persson is a politician. Don’t declare war on Sweden just now. (But if you do, can we Danes have Scania back ? :p)
Anniz, feel free to correct any errors I might’ve made.
Didn’t mean to muscle onto what is rightfully Swedish territory, Floater, but I was checking out the story anyway.
To return briefly to the thread: My gut feeling is that the PM was expressing his own point of view and not speaking on behalf on his governemnet or, indeed, Sweden.
Thanks for the info, all. It doesn’t suprise me that the Prime Minister of Sweden would prefer Gore, it just mildly suprised me that he would openly say so. I suspect that quite a few of the other governments that called to congratulate Bush would have prefered Gore as well (such as the government of Tony Blair), but they played the political game. I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with Persson saying what he did (a bit of honesty in international politics is refreshing), though if Bush holds on to win, meetings between them might be fairly chilly.
BTW, I heard a similar report on one of the news stations that claimed that Bush is unpopular in quite a few foreign nations. The ones they singled out as being particularly anti-Bush were the UK, Germany, Russia, Japan, and Iraq (guess Saddam is afraid Bush might have him executed). Sorry no quotes or cites, so I don’t know how valid the claims were.
Unless this is a Great Debate, would you respectfully agree or disagree with that correction, Montfort? (bolding because I keep mis-typing the “t” )
Of course, from my many trips to and experiences in Europe, it really seems to me that the people of the United States in general are viewed as a barbaric, backwards, dangerous culture of sub-humans that must simply be humored and suffered with for the time being. Which is the reason I get so bitchy, so to speak, when I hear Europeans passing judgement on the US. But this is just IMO, so take it in that context.
While the comments being reported are exceedingly mild, it nonetheless still seems somewhat unprofessional and unpolitical to have a World leader make comments about their preference as to who they would rather not win the elecetion. And the US is guilty of this more than anyone else, I’m not saying that we are perfect at all. I think in general World leaders should not indicate a preference at all in matters like this. They can have one, sure, but they should not discuss it. Like I said, it seems like bad politics.
