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POLITICS

Stefan Löfven resigns as Prime Minister of Sweden

Stefan Löfven has handed in his resignation as Prime Minister, an expected move after he stepped down as leader of the Social Democrats last week.

Published: 10 November 2021 12:05 CET
Updated: 10 November 2021 17:39 CET
Stefan Löfven resigns as Prime Minister of Sweden
Outgoing Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and parliamentary speaker Andreas Norlén. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

Television cameras filmed Löfven handing his resignation letter to the speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlén.

“Well, here we are again,” he said as he and Norlén sat down for a Swedish fika – coffee and biscuits.

Andersson, who is currently Finance Minister, was elected to replace Löfven as party leader of the Social Democrats at the party’s congress last week, putting her on track to become the country’s first woman Prime Minister if she wins a vote in parliament.

No date has been set for that vote yet.

In Sweden’s parliament, political forces are so finely balanced that the Social Democrats need the support of both their Green Party coalition partners and the Left and Centre parties to elect a new Prime Minister.

The Centre Party on Wednesday said it would back Andersson, but the Left Party has not yet confirmed what it’s going to do.

The act of installing the first woman prime minister sounds almost anachronistic in a country that has long championed gender equality. All other Nordic countries – Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland – have all seen women lead their governments.

The change at the head of the Social Democrats comes as the party hovers close to its lowest-ever approval ratings with elections less than a year away, in September 2022.

The right-wing opposition, led by the conservative Moderates, has in recent years inched closer to the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats and hopes to govern with its informal backing.

‘Tight’ election seen

After being confirmed as party leader last week, Andersson, a former junior swimming champion often described as a “pragmatic” politician, outlined three political priorities for the coming years.

She said she wanted to “take back democratic control of schools, healthcare and elderly care”, in a country that has long had a debate over welfare sector liberalisation and privatisation and companies being able to profit from taxpayer money.

She also said she aimed to make Sweden a leader in the climate transition and become a role model for the world.

However, it remains to be seen how much change Andersson will be able to bring to the Social Democrats.

“Magdalena Andersson has worked closely together with Löfven for seven years. I expect no major changes,” Anders Sannerstedt, political science professor at Lund University, told AFP.

“The Social Democrats need to come up with some new policy ideas” if they want to win the election, he said.

But “Andersson is more a technocratic bureaucrat than a visionary creative leader. Time will tell.”

He predicted the general election would be a “very tight race”.

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POLITICS

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

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'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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