Stockholm:

Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven resigned on Wednesday, paving the way for the country, a gender equality fighter, to finally have a female prime minister.

Magdalena Andersson, the current Minister of Finance, was elected to replace Lofven as chairman of the Social Democratic Party last week, which means that she can become Prime Minister if she wins a vote in the Riksdag, which is expected next week.

Lofven this summer said he would resign in November to give his successor enough time to prepare for the September 2022 general election.

The Social Democrats need support from both their Green Party coalition partners and the Left and Center parties to elect a new prime minister.

The Center Party on Wednesday said they would back Andersson, and the Left is expected to do the same.

Lofven, who will remain as interim prime minister until his replacement, said that he expected the Riksdag to elect Andersson relatively smoothly.

“The Swedish people want a quick transition,” he told reporters after his resignation.

Installing the first woman prime minister sounds almost anachronistic in a country that has long fought for gender equality.

All other Nordic countries – Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland – have seen women lead their governments.

The change in the Social Democrats’ leadership comes when the party hovers close to its lowest approvals ever with elections less than a year left.

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

Andersson’s three priorities –

A former welder and union leader, Lofven, 64, came to power in 2014, which led the Social Democrats to an election victory after eight years in opposition.

“Stefan Lofven was never considered a visionary leader for the future. He was needed when the party had problems, and he did the job,” Anders Sannerstedt, professor of political science at Lund University, told AFP.

After being confirmed as the new party leader last week, Andersson, a former junior swimming champion who is often described as a “pragmatic” politician, outlined three political priorities going forward.

She said she wanted to “take back the democratic control of schools, health care and elderly care”, and move away from the privatization of the welfare sector.

She also said that her goal was to make Sweden a worldwide role model in climate change.

And she promised to end the segregation, shootings and bombings that have plagued the country in recent years, usually because of rival gangs that have made scores or organized crime fighting over the drug market.

The violence has mainly affected disadvantaged districts with large immigrant populations, but has increasingly spread to other areas.

In 2020, 47 people were killed in 366 shootings in the country with 10.3 million people, according to official statistics.

There were also 107 bombings and 102 detonation attempts.

Crime and immigration are expected to be among the Swedes’ main concerns in next year’s election.

Sannerstedt, the analyst, predicted that it would be a “very tight race”.

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

But “Andersson is more of a technocratic bureaucrat than a visionary creative leader,” he said.

She “has worked closely with Lofven for seven years. I do not expect any major changes.”

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