The Minister of Finance and chair of the Social Democratic Party, Magdalena Andersson, has been given time until Wednesday morning to gather enough support in the Riksdag to form a government and secure her place as the country’s first female prime minister.

Andersson aims to continue with the same coalition as the previous minority government, the Social Democrats and the Green Party. In the parliament with 349 seats, the Social Democrats have 100 seats and the Greens 16. The constitution allows the government and the prime minister to be appointed as long as the parliamentary majority of 175 members of parliament is not against them.

The right-wing opposition, including the populist Sweden Democrats, is too divided to even vote against the government. Andersson already has the Center Party’s quiet support, but she still has to find a common ground with the Left Party. It has turned out to be some kind of obstacle.

At his ten-minute press conference on Monday, the chairman of the Left Party, Nooshi Dadgostar, mentioned pensions as the threshold issue. The Left Party demands an increase in the guarantee pension for about 700,000 pensioners. According to Dadgostar, the pension system has failed and consequently there are around 300,000 poor pensioners in the country. The increase in pensions should be “meaningful and real”, she said.

Without too much cynicism, it can be said that the negotiations are also a golden opportunity for the Left Party to raise its profile and increase its current 9% support among voters. The next parliamentary election will take place in September next year.

The result of the talks between the Social Democrats and the Left Party is difficult to predict. But on Monday, Magdalena Andersson described them as “constructive” and said that they were “hopeful” that an agreement could be reached.

(Pekka Vänttinen | EURACTIV.com)