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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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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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