We Swedes have been waiting long enough now, since the usurpator Gustav Eriksson Vasa by a coup d'etat abolished our electoral kingdom in 1521, and enforced hereditary monarchy. Interesting enough it was in those years that the Florentinian diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli wrote Discorsi, which is a book built on the claim that the republic is superior to other ways of governng a state. Of course, being Italian, you cannot argue that the republic is not a superior rule, and still claim to be an intellectual.
Machiavelli's main argument for not utilize republican rule was that some states had a population that was not yet ready for republican rule. The people had been living under such circulstances that were characterised by authoritarian, not to say tyrannical rule, and as a consequence they were not yet ready for the relatively free republican rule.
Before 1521, we Swedes elected who should be the ruler, but after the coup d'etat of 1521, we are sort of stuck with hereditary monarchy. Are we Swedes not yet ready for republican rule? Do we still have to breed ur head of state?
Some claim that the royal family is very good international PR for Sweden. We live in Europe and after the First World War the obligation of having a monarch was taken away and the republican rule was allowed in Europe again. Of course it never disappeared completely, which the Second and Third Republics of France is valid evidence of. The cruzial point, however, is that the majority of newly independent states, after WWI, are republics, not monarchies. Why is that?
First, hereditary monarchy is undemocratic and suggests that all people are NOT equal. Actually, the royal family is worth more than an ordinary Swedish citizen. The royal family has got blue blood. To my understanding only some crabs have blue blood, because the blood does not contain hemoglobin, but hemocyan. The Swedish royal family stems from a French lawyer, Henri Bernadotte, which does not seem that far above ordinary citizens. And Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, himself was a republican, he claimed.
Second, after all Sweden has been a democracy since 1921. Shouldn't we have reached the point of being able to deal with republican rule now and abolish monarchy once and for all?
Third, hereditary monarchy in Sweden has a bad track record. The beginning was not good with the coup d'etat of Gustav Eriksson Vasa. There was a second coup d'etat in 1680, when the King Karl XI took absolute power and stated that he no longer needed to listen to the Riksdag. The third coup d'etat was in 1788, by Gustav III. Luckily, a Swedish hero, Johan Jakob Anckarström, put him out of his misery in 1792. Furthermore, Gustav V tried to reach for power in 1914, but failed. At this point it would have been prudent to turn Sweden into a republic, but the opportunity passed by. So why wait until one of these half-wits try to make another coup d'etat?
Fourth, an interesting suggestion surfaced a couple of months ago, claiming that there was no need to replace the King with a President, simply because Sweden actually operates rather good without a functioning head of state. The little what is left of power, instigated in the monarchy, could easily be transfered to the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Riksdag.
Why wait? Do it now? Abolish this inferior ruling system now?
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