This article was first published in Stockholm News 2009-01-07
One of the top political figures in Sweden for the last ten years, Pär Nuder, has at the early age of forty-five written his memoirs, Stolt men inte nöjd (Proud but not content). The book is not available in English, at least not yet. Some of the things he writes might however be interesting also for others than Swedish speakers.
Pär Nuder, born 1963, was appointed special advisor in the Department for Justice at the age of twenty-two (!). He made a quick career and in 1997 at the age of 34 he became one of the first advisors to the Prime Minister. He has later been Minister for Co-ordination and Minister for Finance.
For many people, Pär Nuder is first and foremost remembered for a classical statement about the generation born in the 40ies. In 2004 he called them a ‘meat mountain’. In his book he writes that he was misinterpreted and that he talked about the common pessimistic picture that the welfare will not ‘be enough’ for everyone when the demographic situation changes. He claims he argued against that perception. But his choice of word was already established and would hunt him for a long time.
The most interesting part is when Nuder writes about his relations to the former Prime Minister and party chairman Göran Persson and with the present chairman Mona Sahlin.
Persson was controversial in the party and Nuder was always considered to be his man. But something happened when Nuder left the Prime Minister’s office to become Minister for Finance in 2004.
In early 2005 they had a big argument in front of the whole government when Persson, according to Nuder’s book, questioned his knowledge and judgment. Nuder was on his way to leave the room when Persson said laud that if he left the room now, he would not come back. Nuder stayed. Later in that day Nuder screamed to Persson in his office and the latter was both pale and scared writes Nuder. Their relation never recovered, but even in the government not many understood how much the two ‘brother in arms’ (Nuder’s expression) had drifted apart.
Nuder and Mona Sahlin became friends already in the Social Democratic Youth League in the 70ies. But a year ago she fired him as the Social Democrats’ spokesperson for economy and finance under rather humiliating forms. They discussed other positions for him, but didn’t find any suitable and his is now an “ordinary” parliamentarian.
Mona Sahlin. Photo: Riksdagen
Nuder seems to me a little… if not bitter so at least hurt, by the treatment from Sahlin. Several small things in the book hint that. I do not know if it is conscious or not. He describes for example how he put his arm around Sahlins shoulders to comfort her when she couldn’t keep her tears away at a public meeting to honour the murdered Minister for Foreign Affairs, Anna Lindh.
He also mentions a radio speech by Sahlin when he was still spokesperson for finance. She said: “It is so nice to be at the gym, I forget everything about Reinfeldt (the Prime Minister), Nuder, taxes and EU”. Nuder writes in his book that he was hurt: “Nuder? Why not Usama Bin Ladin, George Bush, too low wages for nurses, unemployment or the climate crises? Why Nuder, the spokesman for economy for her own party and her friend since thirty years”. He keeps coming back to these ’30 years of friendship’.
Nuder’s mother’s reaction on her son’s appointment to Minister for Finance is a bit funny. “But, how will that be. You can’t count or calculate” she said. But Nuder claims a Minister for Finace don’t have to. His task is to coordinate all whishes and ministers’ demands and to simply say ‘No’ most of the times when a minister asks for more money. Others do the calculations.
Finally, Nuder gives four reasons to why his party lost the 2006 election despite a very strong economy. He made the analysis already the day after the election.
1) The shift in the approach of the Moderate party, the biggest of the opposition parties. They didn´t question the Swedish welfare model anymore. The Social democrats talked about specific reforms but the voters didn´t want to hear promises on the macro level, they wanted to hear about the micro level, about what they saw in their every day life. The opposition was better on that.
2) The forced cooperation with the Greens, necessary because of the situation in parliament, made it difficult to govern and the party was torn apart.
3) Göran Persson was tired and wanted to quit but after the murder of Anna Lindh he couldn´t. He had no one who was obvious to take over any more. People in the party expected him, personally, to fix the victory but his popularity among the people was on its way down.
4) The tsunami in South-East Asia at the 26th of December 2004 killed 543 Swedes in Thailand and injured 1500. The aftermath became a long pain for the government. The crisis organization did not work this Boxing-Day and the operation to rescue Swedes started very late. A commission was set up to look into who did what and eventually the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Laila Freivalds had to resign. The failure hunted the government way into the election year.
Photo: Wikimedia
I get a general feeling from the book that Nuder is preparing himself for a political comeback if Sahlin would fail in 2010. But who knows, it would be political suicide of course for him to admit it.
