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Stefan Löfven voted back in as Swedish prime minister

Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven will return to his role as Swedish prime minister, leading a Social Democrat-Green Party coalition after parliament voted on the proposal on Friday.

Published: 18 January 2019 09:59 CET
Updated: 18 January 2019 12:02 CET
Stefan Löfven voted back in as Swedish prime minister
Stefan Löfven pictured during the parliamentary vote. Photo: Jessica Gow / TT

In order to pass the vote, for which The Local was present at Sweden's parliament, Löfven required fewer than 175 of Sweden's 349 MPs to vote against him.

He received the backing of his party and the Green Party (115 MPs in total), while most MPs from the Centre Party, Liberal Party and Left Party (77 MPs) abstained from the vote, although one Centre Party MP voted 'no'. The Moderate Party, Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats all voted against.

FOR MEMBERS: What does Sweden's government deal mean for internationals?

This result was expected after after parliamentary speaker Andreas Norlén formally nominated Löfven as prime minister two days earlier. 

Löfven is set to announce the ministers in the new government on Monday.

Friday's vote was the third parliamentary vote on a prime minister candidate after the close election result left Sweden in political deadlock in September. There is no set time limit to form a government, but the number of prime ministerial votes that can be held is capped at four before a new election must be called.

Negotiations on forming a new government have taken longer than ever before in Sweden, and 131 days have now passed since the September election.

The centre-left bloc won 144 seats (Social Democrats, Greens, Left), the centre-right bloc 143 seats (Moderates, Liberals, Centre, Christian Democrats), and the far-right Sweden Democrats 62 seats, leaving no bloc with an outright majority. 

After Löfven lost an initial vote of confidence in parliament, the Moderates and Christian Democrats tried to form a government. However, this would have required accepting indirect support from the far-right Sweden Democrats, something the Centre and Liberal parties (part of a centre-right Alliance with the Moderates and Christian Democrats), refused to agree to.

But for a long time, they were unable to find enough common ground with the centre-left parties either. Löfven lost an earlier parliamentary vote after talks with the Centre and Liberals broke down.

TIMELINE: Everything that's happened in Swedish politics since the election

The deadlock was finally broken when the Social Democrats and Greens reached an agreement with the Centre and Liberal parties, who will allow the two former parties to govern in exchange for slightly more right-wing economic policies.

Löfven also won the reluctant support, in the form of abstentions, from Sweden's Left Party. Having worked with the previous Social Democrat-Green government on their budget, they are now excluded from many negotiations under the four-party deal. The party's leader said he wasn't happy with this agreement, but would allow Löfven to govern after allegedly being promised some influence in other areas and in order to avoid a right-wing government.

Speaking to reporters after the vote, Löfven described the four-party deal as “historic”.

In a world with growing far-right nationalism, he said, “Sweden chooses a different path”.

Explaining why he had chosen to make a deal with former rivals, Löfven added: “You have to decide. You either make compromises, or everyone stays stuck in their corner and we don't get a government.”

A few notable points from the deal include extending Sweden's temporary migration law for another two years, reintroducing a flight tax which was scrapped in the autumn budget, abolishing rent controls on newly built apartments, and introducing language and civics tests as a requirement for Swedish citizenship.

READ ALSO: Politics Q&A: What happens now and how did Sweden get here?

Politics Q&A: What happens now and how did Sweden get here?
Speaker of parliament Andreas Norlén and Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. Photo: Lars Pehrson/SvD/TT

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SWEDEN DEMOCRATS

REVEALED: Sweden Democrats’ secret social media ‘troll factory’

A Swedish reporter went undercover for a whole year to confirm the existence of a far-right troll factory, run by the Sweden Democrats to spread content of benefit to the party and degrade its political opponents.

Published: 7 May 2024 15:34 CEST
REVEALED: Sweden Democrats' secret social media 'troll factory'

In the Kalla Fakta programme for broadcaster TV4, a reporter spent five months working undercover for the Sweden Democrats, first on the YouTube channel Riks, previously owned by the party, and later for the party’s communications team.

“I was undercover for a whole year, five months of which I was working [for the party],” Kalla Fakta’s reporter Daniel Andersson told The Local. “Two of them I was on Riks, the YouTube channel, and three of them I was in the communications department.”

During this period, Andersson wore a hidden camera to show how the YouTube channel, which the party claims is independent, is in fact closely linked with the party.

Andersson said he found out about the troll factory just before moving over to the communications department.

“They are in the same office building, Riks rents their office from the Sweden Democrats, so during lunch the departments often met, ate lunch together and talked a lot about it. That’s where I overheard secretive talks about anonymous accounts on social media, and they didn’t want to say what their name was or why they had them.”

The Sweden Democrats are also Riks’ largest source of financing, with daily meetings taking place between the channel’s owner, Jacob Hagnell, and Sweden Democrat head of communications Joakim Wallerstein.

Kalla Fakta’s report revealed that the party’s communications wing has been tasked with managing a large number of anonymous social media accounts, referred to within the party as a “troll factory”, an organised group of fake accounts with the aim of influencing public opinion and debate by spreading pro-Sweden Democrat content.

“We’re going to talk a lot more about how they operate in the next episode, in a week,” Andersson said. “But what we saw very early was that it was very, very systematic, it’s organised. And the purpose is to create a huge load of posts on different social media to create an illusion of the fact that the Sweden Democrats and their image of the world and of Sweden is larger than it is.”

“The boss is Joakim Wallerstein, the communications chief of the Sweden Democrats. He’s also the mastermind behind this – we also identified Riks as a part of it, where he is creating a conservative ecosystem, troll factory, to manipulate people’s views of the world,” he added.

Back in 2022, the Sweden Democrats were accused of running a “troll factory” by left-wing newspaper Dagens ETC. At the time, the party rejected the accusations, calling ETC’s article “unserious and obvious activism” in an email to SVT, while admitting that a group called Battlefield, responsible for moderating the party’s comments boxes on social media, did exist at one point.

In the new Kalla Fakta programme and in another interview with Dagens ETC, Wallerstein admits that these anonymous accounts exist, although he rejects the term “troll factory”.

“I don’t think I’ve been running so called troll sites, for the simple reason that I haven’t been spreading false information,” he told Kalla Fakta.

Andersson believes this is nothing more than damage control from the party.

“He doesn’t want to acknowledge that it is a troll factory. He doesn’t see a problem with the fact that they are anonymous, or the fact that the connection to the party is hidden,” Andersson said.

By Paul O’Mahony and Becky Waterton

Hear TV4’s reporter Daniel Andersson explain more about the investigation in the next episode of The Local’s podcast, Sweden in Focus. Out on Friday, May 10th. 

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