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So… who is the prime minister of Sweden right now?

Magdalena Andersson, the first woman to get confirmed as prime minister by the Swedish parliament, quit before even taking office after a tense budget vote threw the government into crisis. So who's running the country?

Published: 25 November 2021 08:32 CET
Updated: 26 November 2021 18:32 CET
magdalena andersson surrounded by applauding party colleagues
Hint: It's not Magdalena Andersson. Photo: Erik Simander/TT

Social Democrat leader Andersson won the prime ministerial vote in parliament on Wednesday morning. Less than eight hours later she tendered her resignation, after a turbulent series of events saw her left-wing budget fail to pass through parliament.

Her decision to step down was sparked by the junior Green Party announcing it was leaving the coalition government, because it refused to govern on a right-wing opposition budget that had been co-authored by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats.

So was Andersson ever Sweden’s first female prime minister or not?

Here’s the crux: Although the Royal Palace holds no real power in modern Swedish politics, technically a new government only takes office after meeting the King.

Normally, the procedure is that after being confirmed by parliament, the prime-minister-to-be and his or her newly-appointed cabinet attend a so-called skifteskonselj – a change of government cabinet meeting with the King of Sweden at the Royal Palace.

That is when the transition of power formally takes place, and the new government does not take up its duties until after that meeting.

Andersson had been set to meet King Carl XVI Gustaf on Friday.

But because she never got around to that before handing in her resignation, she never formally took office.

So again, who’s running the country?

Andersson answered that question herself at a press conference on Wednesday, when asked by a reporter from the Swedish-speaking branch of Finland’s public broadcaster YLE.

It’s Stefan Löfven, who has been leading a caretaker government since he tendered his resignation earlier in November. That government never transferred its powers to Andersson’s new government, so it is still in charge, at least for the time being.

So much for Löfven’s plans to spend the first months of his retirement building a sauna at his summer house in Örnsköldsvik, after seven years as prime minister of Sweden.

stefan löfven

Who’s your prime minister? I’m your prime minister. Photo: Duygu Getrien/TT

Parliamentary speaker Andreas Norlén has now restarted the process of finding a prime minister. After discussions with party leaders on Thursday, he re-nominated Andersson. Parliament will vote on her candidacy a second time on Monday.

She is expected to be re-elected, with the Centre Party, Left Party and Green Party confirming they plan to approve (or accept, as a prime ministerial vote needs no more than a majority of abstentions) her nomination just like they did the first time.

She is then likely to lead a one-party government consisting only of the Social Democrats, and will have to govern on the right-wing budget at least until the next amendment budget in spring, which she said she would be prepared to do.

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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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