Moderate Youth League
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| Swedish Young Conservatives "Moderate Youth League" Moderata ungdomsförbundet
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| Chairperson | Niklas Wykman |
| Secretary General | Lars Rådén |
| Founded | 1934 |
| Headquarters | Stora Nygatan 30, Stockholm |
| Mother party | Moderate Party |
| European affiliation | Youth of the European People's Party (YEPP) |
| Nordic affiliation | Nordic Young Conservative Union (NUU) |
| Website | www.muf.se |
The Moderate Youth League (Swedish: Moderata ungdomsförbundet, MUF), officially known in English as the Swedish Young Conservatives, is the youth wing of the Swedish Moderate Party.
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[edit] History
The Moderate Youth League was formed in 1934 as the Young Swedes (Swedish: Ungsvenskarna) as a consequence of the split between the Moderate Party (then the General Electoral Union) and its youth organization, the National Youth League of Sweden (Swedish: Sveriges nationella ungdomsförbund) which had turned into an openly pro-Nazi organization. In 1946 the organization changed its name to the Youth Association of the Right (Swedish: Högerns ungdomsförbund). The current name was adopted in 1969.
[edit] Organisation
The Moderate Youth League is led by a national executive committee, elected every two years at the national congress. The President is supported by two vice-chairmen. Normally, members of the national executive have served at district level first. The current chairman, for example, used to be chairman of the Stockholm district. The national chairman also sits on the national board of the Moderate Party.
Districts follow county borders. The largest one is Stockholm, followed by Skåne. They maintain a rivalry, sometimes staging competitions on who can recruit the most members.[citation needed] Other large districts include Uppsala and Östergötland.
[edit] Moderate School Youth
Moderate School Youth, (Moderat skolungdom, MSU) is a part of the organisation and includes all MUF members between 12 and 20 years of age.
At the annual conference, a national executive is elected. They are not decision-makers but more of an elite campaigning team which travel around Sweden. The national chairman has a place on the national executive of the Youth League. The current chairman is Sara Dennås.
[edit] Current and Former Members
The Moderate Party has no official student organisation. The Confederation of Swedish Conservative and Liberal Students (Fria moderata studentförbundet, FMSF) was dislodged from the party because of its radical neoliberalism. Therefore many students join the Youth League instead. This results in the age of members spanning the whole age-spectrum from roughly 15 to 30. There is, however, widespread cross-membership between the youth and student leagues. In Uppsala, a traditional student town, the radicalism of the Student League has also spread to the local MUF district due to almost all local leaders also being active in the Confederation of Swedish Conservative and Liberal Students.[citation needed]
Naturally many current politicians of the Moderate Party, started their careers in the Youth League. The most famous being the current leader of the party, Fredrik Reinfeldt, who is a former chairman. The last chairman, Christofer Fjellner, was elected to the European Parliament before resigning from his Youth League position. The Moderate Youth League played a great part in this, lobbying for him inside the party and campaigning for him in the election. In 2002, Tove Lifvendahl became the first Youth League chairman to be elected to the national board of the party directly after resigning from the Moderate Youth League. Many former leaders left politics but gained prominence in other spheres of society, most of all in business.
The Moderate Youth League has around 9,500 members (2004/05).
[edit] Ideology
The Moderate Youth League defines its ideology in four statements. Apart from these, the Youth League publishes no manifestos or political programmes of any sort. These are:
- For the freedom of the individual. Against political oppression and coercion.
- For every human's responsibility for his/her own future. Against paternalism and the nanny state (förmynderi och politisk klåfingrighet).
- For diversity and respect for differences. Against intolerance and conformism.
- For a free market and a world without borders. Against walls and regulations.
Like its opponents in SSU, the Moderate Youth League has suffered from divisions between different factions. The 1990s saw many battles between modernising neoliberals and conservatives. At the Congress in Lycksele in 1992, Fredrik Reinfeldt, the current leader of the Moderate Party, was elected chairman, defeating the neoliberal Ulf Kristersson. That congress have come to be known as The Battle of Lycksele. In recent years, however, the division have largely disappeared. With the Moderates becoming more cosmopolitan, the traditionalist Conservatives have all but disappeared. Gay rights was a source of division, but now almost all of the Moderate Youth League supports equal rights of marriage and adoption for homosexuals. A conservative fringe group, however, was formed. Young Conservative Moderates (Unga konservativa moderater) was only a club for a dussin low executive conservative members and self died after a few months. While being united on economics there is still a large divide on some social issues, especially on drugs since MUF includes both libertarians who want to legalize some or almost all drugs and people who think drug-related crime should be a top-priority for the police and be severely punished.[citation needed]
The modern Moderate Youth League are staunch supporters of capitalism, deregulation and lower taxes. They also adhere to individualism, which extends to wide-reaching support for gay rights. MUF also tends to support the United States, including the 2003 Iraq War. Tove Lifvendahl proudly wore a "I Love Bush" shirt after George W. Bush's election in 2000, although she was quick to criticise him for the steel tariffs he later imposed. During the leadership of Niklas Wykman the Youth League has changed its' rhetoric to a more centrist position, to make it more appealing to the general public. MUF is against the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union. [1][2][3][4]
[edit] Chairpersons
- Torgil von Seth, 1934–1941
- Folke Kyling, 1941–1945
- Ebbe Olsson, 1945–1949
- Gunnar Heckscher, 1949–1952
- Bengt Lind, 1952–1954
- Birger Isacson, 1954–1957
- Sven Johansson, 1957–1959
- Paul Brundin, 1959–1961
- Gunnar Hillerdal, 1961–1963
- Birger Hagård, 1963–1965
- Eric Krönmark, 1965–1966
- Anders Björck, 1966–1971
- Per Unckel, 1971–1976
- Per-Arne Arvidson, 1976–1979
- Gunnar Hökmark, 1979–1984
- Beatrice Ask, 1984–1988
- Ulf Kristersson, 1988–1992
- Fredrik Reinfeldt, 1992–1995
- Thomas Idergaard, 1995–1998
- Gunnar Strömmer, 1998–2000
- Tove Lifvendahl, 2000–2002
- Christofer Fjellner, 2002–2004
- Johan Forssell, 2004–2006
- Niklas Wykman, 2006–present
[edit] External links
- Moderata Ungdomsförbundet (in Swedish)
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