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POLITICS

When will Sweden get a new prime minister?

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has formally stepped down from the role he has had for seven years – but it is not yet clear exactly when his successor will be appointed.

Published: 11 November 2021 08:31 CET
Updated: 11 November 2021 16:18 CET
stefan löfven walking through a gate to the swedish parliament. a sign reads stop
Speaker of parliament Andreas Norlén pours a cup of coffee for Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson during a round of talks on Thursday. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

Löfven handed in his formal resignation to the speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlén, on Wednesday. But that doesn’t mean his successor as leader of the Social Democrat Party, Magdalena Andersson, will automatically become the next prime minister.

Norlén held a series of individual meetings with the party leaders of all the eight parties represented in parliament on Thursday.

This is known as a talmansrunda (talman means speaker of parliament and runda means round or turn), a Swedish word and concept we have become very familiar with in the fragile political balance of the past three years.

After that, he announced that he would give Andersson the first shot at forming a government. She has until 10am on Tuesday next week to report back to Norlén. If she has secured enough support from the other parties in parliament, a prime ministerial vote can be held on November 18th, and if she is successful in that vote her new government can take over on November 22nd.

Andersson will also have the option of asking Norlén on Tuesday for more time.

“I want a fast, but not forced, process,” Norlén told reporters on Thursday afternoon.

Under Sweden’s system of negative parliamentarianism, a prime ministerial candidate needs only to convince a majority of members of parliament not to vote against them in order to take power. But with the slim margins in the Swedish parliament, that is not actually a safe guarantee.

Andersson will need to win the votes or abstentions of both the Centre Party’s 31 MPs and the Left Party’s 28 MPs. Together with the government coalition parties’ 100 Social Democrat MPs and 16 Green Party MPs, this would bring her to the magic majority of 175 mandates (the right-wing parties have 174).

The problem is that there are unresolved obstacles to securing all those mandates.

One of them has been cleared: Löfven was waiting for negotiations with the Centre Party to conclude before formally resigning. That has now happened and the party has confirmed it will let Andersson through.

But the Left Party has made being brought back into negotiations its main demand for supporting Andersson as the new Social Democrat prime minister, so one factor will be the outcome of those talks with Andersson and Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar.

Another problem is that the government has not yet secured majority support for its budget proposal, which parliament is set to vote on on November 24th. Neither the Centre Party nor the Left Party has promised to back the government’s budget. But that’s a separate issue, said Norlén – for now the question is only whether or not Andersson can form a government.

In the meantime, Löfven is still in charge of a caretaker government.

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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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