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Magdalena Andersson gets second shot at becoming Sweden’s next prime minister

Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson will get another chance to become Sweden's first female prime minister, after the speaker of parliament said he would nominate her for the office a second time.

Published: 25 November 2021 14:50 CET
Updated: 25 November 2021 17:22 CET

Magdalena Andersson gets second shot at becoming Sweden's next prime minister

Prime minister candidate Magdalena Andersson. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

The Swedish parliament is now set to again vote on Andersson as prime minister on Monday.

Speaker Andreas Norlén made the announcement on Thursday afternoon after having met with the leaders of Sweden’s eight parties.

He said he would re-nominate Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson, who resigned on Wednesday just hours after having been confirmed by parliament as the country’s next prime minister.

EXPLAINED:

Who is the prime minister of Sweden right now?

What you need to know about Sweden’s next budget

Andersson’s resignation was sparked by the junior Green Party choosing to quit the government coalition after parliament passed a right-wing opposition budget with amendments co-authored by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats.

The usually cautiously soft-spoken Norlén criticised the Green Party on Thursday for not informing him in advance that they were planning to quit the government if the left-wing coalition’s budget failed, before he nominated Andersson as prime minister the first time around.

“In that case I obviously would not have nominated Magdalena Andersson on Monday. I would have waited until after the budget vote,” he told a press conference. He said that the fact that a government had to resign hours after being elected “risked damaging trust” in Sweden’s political system, but stopped short of criticising Andersson, saying that the Green Party’s decision had seemed to come as a surprise to her, too.

Andersson is expected to be re-elected, with the Centre Party, Left Party and Green Party confirming they will approve (or accept, as a prime ministerial vote needs no more than a majority of abstentions) her nomination just like they did the first time.

Her minority government is then expected to be a one-party cabinet made up of only Social Democrat ministers.

NOW WHAT? What will happen next in Sweden’s political drama?

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'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast.

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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