New government drama in Sweden – VG
New government drama in Sweden
Will not there be a female prime minister in Sweden this time either?
This is a comment. The commentary expresses the writer’s position
The Swedish Social Democrats’ newly elected leader Magdalena Andersson failed to reach an agreement with the Left Party within the deadline today, and thus it is heading towards an extremely exciting government vote in the Riksdag on Wednesday morning.
Andersson, who took over as party leader after Stefan Löfven in early November, is still poised to become Sweden’s first female prime minister. But it requires that the stubborn left-wing party members do not vote against Andersson, which will lead to the task of forming a new government going to the Moderates – the Swedish Conservatives – leader Ulf Kristersson.
Most observers believe the Left Party – which has ties to both SV and Rødt – will give Andersson the chance, but the negotiations did not end before the deadline, and the distance, especially when it comes to the issue of increased pensions, remains large between the party and those to the current governing parties, the Social Democrats and the Green Party.
It does not get any easier when the government’s support party, the Center Party – which has relations with both the Center Party and the Liberal Party in Norway – refuses to make concessions to the Left Party.
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But the Center Party warns that they will not oppose Andersson as prime minister, and then everything will be up to the Left Party. If they stand their ground and refuse to bow to their demands, Sweden can once again only have its first female prime minister.
When – or if – Andersson avoids getting the Riksdag majority against him in the vote on Wednesday morning, it will be new drama later in the day. Then it will stem from the current government’s state budget, which Magdalena Andersson in the role of finance minister has been the architect behind. The most dramatic scenario is that Andersson will be elected prime minister in the morning, and will have his budget proposal voted down in the afternoon.
Magdalena Andersson is 54 years old and has for a number of years been one of the most central politicians in the Labor Party’s sister party, the Social Democrats. Since 2014, she has been Minister of Finance and was the natural heir when Stefan Löfven somewhat surprisingly announced his resignation earlier this year.
Unlike the other Nordic countries, Sweden has not yet had a woman as the country’s top political leader, 40 years after Gro Harlem Brundtland went to the top in Norwegian politics. For the Swedish gender equality pioneers, this is like a wound in the political culture. Both Mona Sahlin (S) and Anna Kinberg Batra (M) were close to breaking the glass fence, but failed. Reach able to that is, the feminist Left Party stop a new female prime ministerial candidate, almost on the doorstep of the government building Rosenbad in central Stockholm.
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Andersson highlights three main issues for his (probably) future government: To pursue a policy to stop the spiral of violence in the Swedish cities, to ensure and strengthen welfare, and for Sweden to pursue a more offensive climate policy.
She is considered an active and “no nonsense” politician, and in a recent poll from Sifo voters’ barometer, the party receives support from 29 percent of voters – a (significant) increase of to percentage points from October. The measurement was made after it became known at Andersson takes over for Löfven.
Under the party leader Nooshi Dadgostar, the Left Party has pursued a more aggressive opposition policy and felt Stefan Löfven’s government through a no-confidence motion this summer. Löfven quickly returned as prime minister, but the Left Party has stated that they do not intend to be a political doormat for a Magdalena Andersson government.
The party has had political tailwinds lately, as have the outer left parties in both Norway and Denmark. In the local elections in Denmark last week, the Unity List (the sister party to Norwegian Red) became by far the largest party in Copenhagen, with the support of almost one in four voters.
It is parliamentary elections in Sweden for next year, and the political landscape in what was once one of Europe’s most stable systems remains difficult to understand. After the 2018 election, it took four months before the Swede got his government. Today, the Social Democrats are dependent on support from the Center Party, which in 2019 stepped out of the bourgeois bloc to prevent the controversial right-wing party Sverigedemokraterna from gaining a real foothold in Swedish politics.
But with an increasingly confident and uncompromising left-wing opposition, it can be difficult to get a stable and effective government on its feet in 2022, because the Center Party has also guaranteed that they will not give the Left Party a decisive hand on the wheel. Magdalena Andersson – if she wins the vote (s) on Wednesday – has only a short year to show that she is the political leader the country needs in what are very challenging times for “sweet brother”.
If not, there may be more political riots in Sweden in the years to come.