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Almost three years ago, I wrote a column in which I expressed my thoughts that, as a member of the Social Democrats, you should have the right to choose your own president in an open election process with multiple candidates.
Before my chronicle, I sat down with various party activists to discuss the pros and cons of this way of electing a president. One of those who discussed the issue was Göran Greider.
Greider said that he had considered these paths himself, but that he had landed somewhere where it would be best for party cohesion to continue with the current order.
Fast forward to Monday, September 7, 2020 and the election of a new Borlänge Arbetarekommun president.
The choice was between Peter Hultqvist, the great patriarch of the Dalasossar and the proposed chairman of the nominating committee, and Erik Nises, much younger, but not inexperienced. An election in which Nises was ultimately victorious.
I do not intend to go into a review of the two candidates, but the result of the vote showed that the members wanted a change.
Greider describes the meeting as follows:
“The tension was unbearable when the Bureau finally announced how the votes had fallen. It was impossible to guess the outcome beforehand. And Erik Nises got 79 of the votes to Hultqvist’s 65. So no landslide victory for Nises and no breakthrough. for Hultqvist “.
Later he added in his text that this was a victory for internal democracy and the popular movement.:
“I think it was a victory for a popular movement that I was able to witness this Monday evening at Folkets Park in Borlänge: everyone at the meeting had independently thought about who they wanted as president. And many were glad that it is a test of strength for a workers municipality that two such strong candidates were ready to lead the organization ”.
When I read these words, I immediately went back to that night in late November 2017 when Greider and I sat down and discussed the issue of the election of the party president. So this kind of election was something that could divide the party, an opinion that he is far from the only one to represent.
But I don’t think Greider is engaging in any kind of advanced hypocrisy, on the contrary. I think Greider knows the game well and makes well balanced positions.
On the other hand, I think that he and many others were trapped in the image of a party with many phalanx battles that must be stopped through closed processes and negotiations between phalanxes. All so as not to create division.
But yes, instead, we learn from what Greider is doing now. He supported Hultqvist’s proposal from the nominating committee, but praised the democratic process afterward.
Then we can raise a new generation of fools. A generation that believes in open and democratic processes but that, at the same time, is willing to give up prestige in case of loss.
That would be a real victory for our popular movement!
