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TODAY: Swedish parliament to vote on Magdalena Andersson again as prime minister

Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson will get a second shot at becoming Sweden's new prime minister on Monday, after her first attempt last week lasted just seven hours.

Published: 29 November 2021 07:37 CET
TODAY: Swedish parliament to vote on Magdalena Andersson again as prime minister
Prime ministerial candidate Magdalena Andersson. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

UPDATED: Magdalena Andersson wins second vote in parliament

Parliament is expected to appoint Andersson as the head of a minority government made up solely of the Social Democrats, with just 10 months to go before September general elections. The parliament’s vote is scheduled to begin at 1pm.

If confirmed as anticipated, Andersson, the 54-year-old current finance minister, faces a challenging period in the run-up to the election.

Holding 100 of 349 seats in parliament, her minority government will have to govern with the opposition’s budget following what media dubbed a “nightmarish” day in parliament last week.

Last Wednesday, lawmakers elected Andersson as the country’s first woman prime minister but she resigned just hours later – before she even had a chance to formally take office – after the Green Party quit her coalition government.

Despite being a nation that has long championed gender equality, Sweden has never before had a woman as prime minister.

The parliamentary turbulence was unprecedented in politically stable Sweden, where the Social Democrats have dominated for almost a century.

ANALYSIS: How did politics in Sweden get so fiendishly complicated?

The tumult began when Andersson secured a last-minute deal with the Left Party to raise pensions in exchange for its crucial backing to get her elected as prime minister.

But that agreement did not sit well with the small Centre Party, which withdrew its support for Andersson’s budget due to the concessions made to the Left.

That left Andersson’s budget with insufficient votes to pass in parliament. Lawmakers instead adopted an alternative budget presented by the opposition conservative Moderates, Christian Democrats and far-right Sweden Democrats.

Andersson grudgingly said she would still be able to govern with that budget, but the Green Party said it could not accept a budget drafted by the far-right and quit the government.

That meant Andersson had to resign, as the basis on which she was appointed no longer existed.

Weak government

While some experts say the Social Democrats will now have an easier time as the sole party in power without having to make concessions to a coalition partner, others predict a bumpy road ahead.

Andersson’s weak minority means she will have to seek support for her policies on both the left and the right.

Her most obvious cooperation partners are the Greens, the Centre and Left parties. But she is also expected to court the right on issues blocked by the Greens during their time in government, including the expansion of Stockholms’ Arlanda airport and a final depository for nuclear fuel waste.

KEY POINTS: What you need to know about Sweden’s new budget

Andersson has also singled out crime and immigration – key voter concerns – among her top priorities, issues where the Social Democrats are closer ideologically to the centre-right.

The opposition has however been quick to point out that the right has the strongest constellation in parliament, and would likely be able to pass many of its policies without the Social Democrats.

The Moderates, Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats are united on most issues and together control 154 seats in parliament, while the four parties on the left are more splintered.

“The Social Democrats will have to accept that it is parliament that decides and government obeys,” Moderates leader Ulf Kristersson warned.

An economist who has served as finance minister for the past seven years, Andersson took over as leader of the Social Democrats on November 4th from Stefan Löfven. He resigned as prime minister a week later, after seven years in power, in order to give her time to prepare for the September elections.

Article by AFP’s Pia Ohlin

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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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