Unpopular selectmen in Sweden could be thrown out of office before their terms are finished after voters passed a new recall ordinance Saturday.

With the law seemingly in place, the opposition in Sweden is gearing up to schedule an election in the next few weeks to recall Selectman Dana Nason. But Nason is resisting, saying the results from Saturday’s special town meeting are invalid.

This is just the latest town skirmish in Western Maine, with dissatisfied residents pitted against a controversial town leader. Last June in Brownfield, a record number of voters, more than 800, turned out for an election that ended with the discharge of all three selectmen.

And in Waterford, Selectman William “Whizzer” Wheeler resigned in July after being criticized by a watchdog group, Take Back Our Waterford. Wheeler, however, unexpectedly surged back to office when he was re-elected to the board by 117 write-in ballots at a special town meeting last week.

“There has been more of a flurry of recall activity in the last five years,” Mike Starn of the Maine Municipal Association said recently, adding Hollis and Gray to the list of towns that have gone through these political crises.

The state Legislature passed a recall law for municipal officers in 1993. But it’s up to communities to write the ordinance into their books. In the last 16 years, between 20 and 40 municipalities have adopted the ordinance, according to Starn, who had to guess because no one he knows is keeping track of the rules adopted by Maine municipalities. That number also does not include the 75 communities that have municipal charters, of which about half include a recall provision.

And in the meantime, recall petitions have been rare. Starn says that’s for the best.

“It is really meant for very serious, very uncommon situations,” Starn said. “You shouldn’t be electing people and recalling them at the same rate; the recall should be the exception, not the rule. The election and re-election process should be the process by which we make our opinions about elected officials known.”

A recall petition can exacerbate tension in a town, he continued, saying in the instances where he has observed a municipality pursuing this course that it has often stirred turmoil and divided the people.

The desire to oust a local leader can arise from many different situations, but University of Southern Maine Professor Emeritus Oliver Woshinsky said tough economic times can inflame local politics, especially when finances or budget issues are lurking somewhere in the conflict.

In Waterford and Sweden, money appears to be part of the problem, with Waterford dissidents protesting tax policies that have significantly increased some lake-front property taxes. Wheeler played a role in developing those policies.

In Sweden, townspeople raised alarm at the March town meeting when the Board of Selectmen proposed increasing the salaries of two town employees by thousands of dollars. Nason, as one of the assessors, has recently helped complete a townwide revaluation that he said is grating on some property owners.

And then of course, there’s basic personality clashes.

“Any kind of problem or conflict gets wrapped up in local personalities when you are talking about small towns and cities,” Woshinsky said.

Members of the Waterford watchdog group have criticized Wheeler’s disposition, which Paul Hersey of Waterford has described as “explosive.” One of the five reasons given on Sweden’s recall petition for Nason is “extreme discourtesy and arrogant behavior to citizens at public meetings,” according to Annette Bouchard.

But Nason said that claim is vague. He also threw back the accusation of misbehavior to his detractors. “They have become this little mob,” he said. “They think if they are very loud and boisterous I will cave into that, and it has infuriated them.”

The Brownfield situation in some ways stands apart from the clashes in Sweden and Waterford because, whereas the problems in the latter towns are fairly recent, Brownfield has been steeped in strife for many years.

Some in town say the underlying conflict is a schism between old-timers and newer residents.

“It’s flat-landers against the local people,” said Linda Pestilli, formerly of Massachusetts. Pestilli’s husband, Vincent, was one of the three selectmen booted off the Brownfield board. “There are people who have lived here all their lives, and they resent the fact that people from out of town, out of state move in.”

Wanda Bartlett, Brownfield’s town clerk for the past 14 years, agreed. “A lot of it has to do with people coming from out-of-state, moving up here and trying to push the same laws on us. That is where much of the controversy comes from.”

Starn, who has been with the Maine Municipal Association since before the 1993 recall law, said he has seen most recall movements fail half-way through.

“Sometimes someone says I’ll resign, or what is bothering people is only bothering a small number of people, and when the small number of people try to get signatures, their issues are not held by the people at large,” Starn said.

Wheeler, who triumphed in the push to oust him, pointed out that a negative outcome of recall movements could be to discourage residents from volunteering for public service.

“Who the hell wants to go through that and get abused by that and get called names?” he said. “You are not going to get these people. You are going to get dolts.”