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The Winning Streak of the European Right Wing Stopped at 8

The Winning Streak of the European Right Wing Stopped at 8

Posted September. 16, 2002 22:41,   

한국어

Therefore, a ‘red light’ is on to the winning streak of the right wing in 8 European countries such as Austria, Spain, Italia, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands since 2000. Red is the symbol of the left wing. In 1998, 12 out of 15 EU countries had left wing governments, but changed to right wing countries due to 8 consecutive wins since 2000 by the right wing.

The Prime Minister Person from the Social Democratic Party, which won 144 seats in this general election, put meaning on the first win by the European left wing since 2000. He waved a red rose, which was the symbol of the left wing, and said, “We broke the trend of Europe.”

The Prime Minister Person proclaimed that he would remain as a minority government unlike the former government, which made a left coalition with the Left Wing and the Green Party. He said he would cooperate with the Left Wing (8.3% of total vote) and the Green Party (4.5% of total vote) for issue by issue. The Left Wing and the Green Party promised to cooperate with the Social Democratic Party on the 15th.

The Social Democratic Party, which was predicted to win easily, had a difficult fight since the support rate of the Liberal Party, which was one of the right wing parties, raised sharply. Since the assertion of the Liberal Party that ‘an immigrant must take the Swedish exam when giving out the Swedish citizenship,’ was supported by the people, the support rate of the Liberal Party raised by 3 times in few months.

As a result, the support rate of the right wing was raised as well, so the support rate of the left and right wing was 50 to 50 at the day before the election. It proved that the flame of the right wing, which succeeded to make an issue of the immigration problems, was not extinguished in Sweden.

The Prime Minister Person, who succeeded to regain the power, led Sweden since 1996. He won public favor by active service like visiting North Korea leading the EU Delegation as the EU Sequence Chairman. He, who had a pro-EU policy, said that he put whether to take the Euro or not in a national referendum, but he presented a left wing public pledge not to change the North European social security of ‘from cradle to grave’ during the election campaign.

It depends on the result of the German general election in next week how the victory of the Swedish left wing affects the European politics. The saying of the Prime Minister Person, “I hope the ‘comrades’ in Germany can follow us,” was done with that in his mind.



Jei-Gyoon Park phark@donga.com