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What’s next for Sweden? Why today is crucial for the country’s political future

Sweden's new parliament will meet for the first time today to elect a new speaker. Here's why that matters and what you need to know.

Published: 24 September 2018 07:59 CEST
What's next for Sweden? Why today is crucial for the country's political future
Incumbent Prime Minister Stefan Löfven talks to his opposition rivals during one parliament session. Photo: Henrik Mongomery/TT

What is the Riksdag?

Sweden's parliament – the Riksdag – consists of 349 members who make the country's laws.

According to the constitution all public power stems from the people and the Riksdag is the people's main representatives. Those eligible to vote in the national election – Swedish citizens over the age of 18 who are or have been registered in Sweden – are also allowed to stand for election.

How old is Sweden's parliament?

Older than both democracy and the right to vote, in fact.

Even back in the Middle Ages, kings would call representatives of powerful interests in the kingdom to formal diets. Such a meeting at Arboga in 1435 is often considered the first Riksdag. A century later, King Gustav Vasa (1523-1560) would assemble the four estates – nobility, clergymen, burghers and peasants – and in the 17th century the Riksdag became a more permanent function of society. The 1809 constitution abolished absolute royal rule and stated that power should be shared between King and Riksdag.

How do you get elected?

Sweden primarily votes for parties, not people. But if you really want to vote for a particular person, you can do so if they have given their consent to represent a party. In most cases this means that the party has ranked a list of names on their voting ballot and if you want to give someone further down the list an extra boost and chance to get into parliament you can tick their name on the list.

What does the Riksdag do?

The 349 MPs split themselves up into various committees which act like a kind of mini version of the larger Riksdag. Each committee has 17 MPs who manage areas such as culture, taxation, defence and education. The committees are in charge of much of the day-to-day work.

READ ALSO: What we know so far about Sweden's next government


Stefan Löfven, Social Democrat, and Ulf Kristersson, Moderate, debate in front of 2014-2018 speaker Urban Ahlin. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

How is the government appointed?

The Riksdag votes for a prime minister candidate, who forms the government. If a party has its own parliamentary majority it is a straightforward process: the party votes for its own leader as prime minister and that's that. But in all other situations, the parties have to compromise and work together. The more parties in parliament, the more cooperation is needed. In Sweden you often talk about the two blocs – red (left) and blue (right) – parties that have more in common with each other and tend to vote the same way.

Why does the speaker of parliament matter?

The speaker formally chairs the Riksdag. They almost always come from the party that has the most votes (although this won't necessarily be the case this time – keep reading to find out why), and are assisted by a couple of deputy speakers, usually from the parties that are second and third.

The speaker also makes sure that someone forms a government, because according to the rules, he or she is in charge of putting forward a proposal for who should become prime minister. That is however usually preceded by plenty of discussions behind closed doors.

The speaker has four attempts to get parliament to agree to a new prime minister, or at least convince enough MPs to abstain and not actively vote against the candidate. If they fail to agree, a new election shall be held within three months. So far, parliament has always approved the first proposal.

What happens if there is no government?

A government that does not enjoy the tacit support by a majority in the Riksdag, which could happen in Sweden in the coming days, is allowed to continue working until a new government is in place. A so-called transitional government has in principle the same powers as a regular government, but it may not call a new election and in practice it usually only executes decisions in matters that are already ongoing.

Can MPs vote however they want in parliament?

Yes, there is no law stating that you have to toe the party line. There are several examples of members who have opposed their party on various issues. One such case was the controversial use of signals intelligence in 2008, where Liberal MP Camilla Lindberg went against the party line and voted no. Her colleague Birgitta Ohlsson was also critical, but chose to abstain out of respect for her party.

There are also independents who have left their party and either joined another or just represent themselves. The Sweden Democrat group has a handful of MPs who switched to breakout group the Alternative for Sweden party, which has never otherwise been elected to parliament.

How does it compare to other systems?

In other countries it is common that parliament has two chambers: for example the Senate and House of Representatives in the US, or the House of Commons and House of Lords in the UK. Sweden abolished its two-chamber system in 1971 and has since only had the one chamber.

What happens next?

The newly elected members of the Riksdag will meet for a roll-call at 11am on September 24th. On the same day, they will also elect a speaker. Due to the unusual situation with two very weak blocs (the left wing has 144 seats, the right wing 143, and the far-right Sweden Democrats 62) it looks like the right-wing's candidate will become speaker despite the left-wing Social Democrats being the largest party.

The opening of the Riksdag session on September 25th then formally marks the start of a new term. King Carl XVI Gustaf, who has no formal powers, will attend on the first day to declare the new session open.

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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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