Swedish Greens struggle in Greta’s shadow

Polls show party risks dropping out of parliament at next election.

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STOCKHOLM — Teenage activist Greta Thunberg has triggered an environmentalist wave in her homeland of Sweden and across the world — but the Green Party in her own country is struggling to catch it.

After six years as junior partner to the Social Democrats in a minority coalition government, support for the Greens is waning, and one of its two joint leaders just quit, saying the party needs “new energy.”

Once seen as a radical engine of change, the Green Party must now convince a new generation of activists that it can turn their demands into policy, if the party is to extend a quarter-century run in parliament. Polling suggests it could struggle to clear the 4 percent threshold needed to win seats at the next election, due in 2022.

“When it comes to voter support, we are in quite a severe situation,” Party Secretary Märta Stenevi said. “We have to turn that around."

That's ironic at a time when Thunberg's activism has turned thousands on to the climate cause, attracting praise from world leaders (and mockery from U.S. President Donald Trump). The simplicity of her unyielding message to the world's political and business leaders contrasts starkly with the messy compromises of governing that the Green Party has had to make.

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Outside the Swedish parliament building on Friday, supporters of Thunberg’s Fridays for Future campaign — which involves striking from study or work on a Friday in favor of attending a rally — were quick to point out the Swedish Green Party’s failings.

“They aren’t doing enough, they don’t have the policies that are needed,” said Isabelle Axelsson, a 19-year-old student.  “There are no parties in the Swedish parliament that are following what the scientific research says, in the way they need to do on climate change.”

People from various walks of life joined the gathering. A Romanian man campaigning against deforestation said he was looking for Thunberg so he could raise with her the issue of illegal logging in his homeland. He couldn’t find her.

Cilla Holm, a 57-year-old health worker, was talking to passers-by about the need to stop the planned expansion of an oil refinery on the Swedish west coast, which she said would cause a big rise in emissions at a time when Sweden, like the rest of Europe, is struggling to meet targets set as part of the Paris climate agreement.

This kind of grassroots engagement has been growing rapidly here over recent years. Marches organized by Fridays for Future have drawn thousands onto the streets of Stockholm and the group is planning a full week of action later this month, including a “global school strike” on September 20.

But the Green Party is struggling to harness the zeitgeist. While sister parties in the likes of Finland and Germany have surged in popularity, support for the Greens in Sweden has stalled.

Critics say the party has been too timid.

When Thunberg was planning her first school strike in 2018, Green Party leader Gustav Fridolin tried to talk her out of it — something he said he later regretted. Fridolin was also education minister at the time.

“Lawmakers need to dare to do things now which will make them unpopular, that will make people not like them,” said campaigner Holm. “They will see in the future when people look back and see what they did for future generations, then they will get their thanks.”

Some observers say a period in opposition might benefit the Green Party by allowing it time to build support without the responsibility of government. It appeared close to quitting the ruling coalition this summer over the divisive issue of asylum policy.

"The choice is hard as the party has invested a lot to be seen as having 'government competence,'" said Niklas Bolin, a political scientist at Mid Sweden University. "It has also made clear that it feels it needs to be in government to have real influence over its core issues: climate and environment."

Stenevi, the party secretary, defended Green Party successes in a number of areas, including a scheme to increase the renewable share of vehicle fuel sold to drivers and a climate law obliging Swedish governments to show how they will hit climate targets.

However, she said that parties in government, especially junior parties in a coalition, face particular challenges getting recognition for what they have achieved.

Alongside the day-to-day hard work of governing, the party must attract voters with a vision of the future, she said.

“Voters don’t vote to give a gold star to someone who has done something well, you vote for what you want to happen during the next mandate period,” she said. “We need to be clear about the changes we have made and the reform agenda we have and what the progressive Green Party wants to happen next.”

History lessons

The Swedish Green Party was founded by a group of volunteers who gathered in the Stockholm apartment of former Liberal Party lawmaker and later Green Party leader Per Gahrton in September 1980.

The new party was named “Miljöpartiet de Gröna” or “Environment Party The Greens” and ran unsuccessfully in the 1982 election. The party entered parliament for the first time in 1988 and has won seats at every poll since 1994, becoming something of a guiding light for the European green movement.

However, since 2014, when it became the junior party in the minority Social Democrat-led government, it has morphed into something closer to a cautionary tale.

It suffered a succession of defeats on key environmental questions — including a failure to get Stockholm city airport closed and a failure to stop an expensive Stockholm ring road being built — and burnt through a series of leaders.

The latest was Isabella Lövin, who announced her resignation at the end of August. The party will now pick a new female leader — it must have one male and one female leader, according to internal rules — to work alongside Per Bolund, who has been in post since last year.

Stenevi, who has been tipped as a potential candidate for the top job, said she is not yet ready to say whether she would put herself forward.

“Whoever the new leader is, like the whole party and environmentalist movement, they have a huge task ahead,” she said.

Outside the parliament on Friday, there were further signs of the ability of Thunberg's message to resonate across different groups in society. As the rally wound up, an older supporter arrived to hand out flyers. Her group "Grandparents for Future" was campaigning for cuts to emissions. Change is needed "for the good of our grandchildren," read the flyer.

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