kandidaternas

Kandidaternas is a Swedish genitive plural form derived from kandidater, meaning candidates. It functions as a possessive construction used to indicate something that belongs to or concerns the group of candidates. The form is not a specific organization or entity, but a grammatical tool commonly found in Swedish writing, including news coverage and election material.

In practice, kandidaternas appears in contexts such as headlines, subheadings, or phrases like kandidaternas bakgrund (the candidates’ backgrounds), kandidaternas åsikter (the candidates’ views), or kandidaternas program (the candidates’ platform). It signals that the discussion or item pertains to the candidates as a collective, typically within municipal, regional, or national election coverage.

Linguistically, the base noun is kandidater (plural), with kandidaterna serving as the definite plural “the candidates,” and kandidaternas representing the definite possessive form “the candidates’.” This mirrors standard Swedish possessive grammar, where -nas marks possession in the definite plural.

The term is a neutral grammatical construction rather than a stand-alone subject. Its use depends on context and is most common in political reporting and analysis when the focus is on the group of people running in an election. When a specific election or slate is implied, kandidaternas functions as a contextual label rather than a fixed entity.