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POLITICS

Magdalena Andersson gets new deadline to seek support for PM bid

Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson will get another week to try to gather enough support – or at least acceptance – to become Sweden’s new prime minister.

Published: 16 November 2021 11:11 CET
Magdalena Andersson gets new deadline to seek support for PM bid
Sweden's maybe-soon-to-be prime minister Magdalena Andersson. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

Parliamentary speaker Andreas Norlén decided on Tuesday to extend Andersson’s deadline until Monday.

“I was informed that there’s progress but more time is needed. I want Sweden to urgently get a new government, but at the same time the work should not be forced,” said Norlén in a statement after meeting with Andersson on Tuesday morning.

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. But with the slim margins in the Swedish parliament, that is not a safe guarantee.

Andersson needs either the votes or the abstentions of the Left Party’s 28 MPs – which she has not yet secured. Together with the government’s 100 Social Democrat MPs and 16 Green Party MPs, and the Centre Party’s 31 MPs, this will bring her to the magic majority of 175 mandates (the right-wing parties have 174 seats in parliament).

The Left Party has made being brought back into negotiations its main demand for supporting (usually described as “tolerating” in Sweden, since abstaining is enough to let a candidate through) Andersson as the new prime minister, so one factor is the outcome of those talks.

Andersson said on Tuesday that “constructive talks” with the Left Party were ongoing and that she was “prepared to make some concessions”, although the TT newswire reported that she would not be drawn on what issues she would consider compromising on.

Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar has previously mentioned higher pensions and scrapping Sweden’s unpaid first day of sick leave (karensdag) as two policy changes she would like to see, but she has also indicated that she would be willing to compromise.

Before the firm Monday deadline, Andersson is set to give Norlén an update on how negotiations are progressing by Friday.

If Norlén wants to, he will be able to propose Andersson as a candidate to parliament on November 24th at the earliest. He can do this either if he thinks her government has a good chance of being accepted, or even if he thinks it doesn’t, just to move the process on. He can also decide to give her more time to conclude negotiations, or hand the job of trying to form a government over to another party leader.

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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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