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2022 SWEDISH ELECTION

Swedish PM threatens to resign if opposition push out justice minister

Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has threatened to resign if the opposition succeeds in its vote of no confidence in the country's justice minister.

Published: 2 June 2022 18:45 CEST
Swedish PM threatens to resign if opposition push out justice minister
Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson condemned the opposition Moderate Party as irresponsible for backing a no-confidence motion from the Sweden Democrats. Photo: Henrik Montgomery / TT

The Moderate, Christian Democrat, and Liberal Parties on Thursday said they would back a no-confidence vote against Morgan Johansson, Sweden’s Justice Minister, called by the populist Sweden Democrats.

“We’ve got the point that the single most important measure in crime politics is to send Morgan Johansson into early retirement,” said Henrik Vinge, the Sweden Democrats’ group leader in parliament, as the party announced the call. If the Centre Party decides to back the measure, Johansson will be removed from his position. 

Magdalena Andersson came out fighting on Thursday evening, condemning Ulf Kristersson, leader of the opposition Moderate Party, for backing what she said was an irresponsible political stunt, and pledging to resign if the no-confidence vote succeeded. 

“It’s horrifically irresponsible,” she said at a press conference on what she described as “the latest gambit from the Sweden Democrats and the Moderates”. 

“We are right now three months before a general election and there’s a war in our neighbourhood. To then create a situation of political chaos and insecurity is totally irresponsible,” she said. “It’s flagrant. We are not in a situation for playing political games in Sweden. It’s genuinely dangerous.”  

She said that anyone who believed that Sweden’s problems with gun crime and violent gangs came down to a single minister did not understand the problem. 

“If you think that this problem is simply about a justice minister, then you haven’t understood the problem at all. Absolutely not at all. We have a justice minister who has worked intensively to hire more police and make punishments tougher. The problem is much bigger than that.” 

She said that Sweden’s system of collective decision-making in government meant that if you depose a minister for taking a political decision, then the whole government should resign. 

She reserved some of her toughest words for Ulf Kristersson, who she accused of not taking the responsibility an opposition leader should. 

“I will naturally need to have a deep think about what sort of opposition leader we have in Sweden,” she said. “To act in this way in this difficult situation is to not to take responsibility.” 

The Centre Party, which has the decisive vote on the issue, refused to be drawn on Thursday as to which way it would go. 

“We are obviously taking the criticism of Morgan Johansson seriously and are now going to follow up the situation in detail,” said group leader Anders Johnsson. “We are going to calmly discuss the issue in our parliamentary group and then take a decision on our position.” 

Morgan Johansson has dismissed the motion as a political play and said he is looking forward to being Justice Minister for four more years. 

“I see this as a way for the right-wing parties to up the temperature before the election,” he said. “t’s also a sign that the Sweden Democrats, Moderates, and Christian Democrats are acting much more together, which could mean that in future the Sweden Democrats wants to take over the Justice Department.” 

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SWEDEN ELECTS

Sweden Elects: New finance minister under fire after first long interview

In our weekly Sweden Elects newsletter, The Local's editor Emma Löfgren explains the key events to keep an eye on in Swedish politics this week.

Published: 14 November 2022 08:37 CET
Sweden Elects: New finance minister under fire after first long interview

Hej,

Elisabeth Svantesson has given her first long interview as finance minister, speaking to the Svenska Dagbladet daily just days after she presented her first budget on behalf of Sweden’s new, right-wing government.

The government has already faced accusations of deprioritising the climate crisis, and Svantesson conceded in the interview that its planned investment in nuclear power (which is a low-emission source of energy, but takes time to develop, so it pays off only in the long run) would also make it difficult to reach Sweden’s climate targets within the next decade.

Asked what will happen if Sweden does not meet its Agenda 2030 target, the sustainable development targets agreed by the United Nations, by that year, she said: “It would mean that we don’t meet the targets. If we don’t we don’t, but our ambition is to steer towards that goal.”

That quote, which was perceived as far more laissez-faire than the situation warrants, was met with criticism from the opposition.

“I’m astounded at how you sign agreements and vote for legislation in parliament only to ignore it when you feel like it,” said Green Party leader Per Bolund.

The Social Democrats’ former finance minister Mikael Damberg gave a diplomatic-or-patronising answer (a school of conflict avoidance that can be perfected only by a party that’s more used to being in power than not being in power) and guessed that Svantesson had perhaps not meant it like that. “Svantesson has had a lot to do this week, maybe she’s tired.”

Speaking of interviews, one Swedish newsroom has not yet been getting them, at least not with senior ministers. One of public broadcaster SVT’s top political interviewers, Anders Holmberg, points out that all four right-wing party leaders and several ministers have declined to appear on his “30 minuter”, a show famous for putting hard-hitting questions to politicians and senior decision-makers. It’s of course not mandatory to say yes to all interviews even as a politician, but it’s an unusual move.

It’s interesting that Bolund tried to attack Svantesson specifically on not following through on commitments. This has been a recurring piece of criticism since the new government was elected two months ago.

The budget was more conservative (in this particular case I mean conservative as in cautious rather than as in right-wing) than you might have expected based on the government’s election pledges, and it’s not the only campaign promise that they’ve been forced to backtrack on.

“The central thing is that they’re breaking most of their major election promises at the same time as as they’re not really managing to take care of the big social problems Sweden faces today,” Damberg told SVT.

To be fair, you would kind of expect him to say this (when has a political opposition party ever praised the government’s budget?), but significantly, the criticism hasn’t only come from the left-wing opposition.

Moderate Party politicians in the powerful Skåne region earlier this month slammed their party for failing to deliver the promised support to those suffering sky high power bills in the southern Swedish county.

“There are effectively no reforms, and they’re not putting in place the policies they campaigned for in the election,” the head of the liberal think tank Timbro told the Aftonbladet newspaper about the budget.

It will be interesting to see whether the label as “promise breakers” sticks, and whether that will affect the right-wing parties in the next election.

Did you know?

Parties make more and more pledges during election campaigns. Ahead of the 2014 election, a whopping 1,848 vallöften (election promises) were made, according to research by Gothenburg University, up from 326 in 1994.

You may not believe this, because the stereotypical image of the dishonest politician perhaps unfairly endures, but research shows that most politicians keep most of their election promises most of the time.

Swedish parties in a single-party government and coalition governments with a joint manifesto tend to deliver on between 80 and 90 percent of their vallöften, according to political scientist Elin Naurin. For coalition governments without a joint manifesto, it ranges from 50 to 70 percent.

In other news

the deputy mayor of the town of Norrtälje, who got 15 seconds – technically 26 seconds – of fame after he was left speechless when a reporter asked him to defend hefty pay rises for top councillors has resigned, saying he wants to take responsibility for what happened.

He also told SVT about his long and very awkward silence on camera that his brain had simply blacked out after having worked for 13 hours straight and gone nine hours without food in the post-election frenzy.

Sweden Elects is a weekly column by Editor Emma Löfgren looking at the big talking points and issues after the Swedish election. Members of The Local Sweden can sign up to receive the column as a newsletter in their email inbox each week. Just click on this “newsletters” option or visit the menu bar.

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