Swedish politics II

With less than a week until the elections things are getting rough in Malmö. There are two coalitions fighting for power, left versus right basically - nothing exciting there. Under the surface though, there's weird stuff going on: a mini watergate, where Folkpartiet has hacked in to Socialdemocrat intranet to get their plans was discovered, but Folkpartiet's voters don't seem to be too affected by it.

Among the less mainstream parties there are at least 3 pretty weird ones. First of all "Piratpartiet" which many have heard about, who are pro legalizing pirate copying, and for a liberal understanding of IPR, for free distribution of culture and knowledge. They are also bothered by what they see as surveillance when the police arrest file-sharers. They might be overly radical, but I think they have some points when it comes to the position that IPRs have today.

Another weird political branch here is Skånepartiet. They are right wing, racist-radical separatists, that want to make muslims pledge allegiance to Skåne, and not Islam, and then toast in beer. They consider Sweden to be the Sweden minus Skåne and wish for a free and independent Skåne.

The last weird thing is not really a party at all, "Osynligapartiet" (the invisible party) who is opposed to all established "democratic" tradtitions, which they see as a joke. They see the social democrats as jesters, and the moderates as nazis. They think we should take the world back, take democracy back, and decide for ourselves, don't pay the bus ticket, don't work at work, get what you can. To the extent that they have members, some of them were caught by the police in Lund last night for vandalizing an election stand.

I don't know if it's connected, but today in Malmö (Sydsvenskan, Aftenposten), the police had do dismantle a home made bomb outside one of the stands...

Lotsa fun.