Sweden’s first female prime minister returns days after he resigned
Sweden’s first female Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was appointed again on Monday after she jumped out of political chaos and congestion ahead of the election. Legislators barely elected her prime minister for the second time in less than a week after she laid out plans for a minority government consisting only of her Social Democrats.
The former finance minister had won a similar vote on Wednesday but threw in the towel hours later after a junior coalition partner left the government over a lost budget vote. – Like all minority governments, we will seek cooperation with other parties in the Riksdag, and I see good opportunities to do so, said Andersson, whose party has 100 seats in parliament with 349 seats, at a press conference.
“The Social Democrats have the largest party group in the Riksdag by a wide margin. We also have a long tradition of cooperation with others and are ready to do what is needed to lead Sweden forward.” The leader of the right-wing opposition Moderate Party, Ulf Kristersson, described the incoming administration as a “nine-month-long administrative government” and said that it would not be able to achieve much before the September 2022 election.
Andersson will need to lead one of Sweden’s weakest governments in recent decades, and rule on a budget formulated in part by three opposition parties, including the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, whose success over the past decade is at the heart of Sweden’s political turbulence. Parliament adopted budget amendments tabled by the opposition last week which drastically reshaped the government’s spending plans.
The Social Democrats have been in power since 2014 with the support of parties united by little other than their desire to prevent the Sweden Democrats from influencing politics. The center-right opposition has struggled to gather enough votes to form a majority government and opinion polls suggest there may be some change in the political calculation in the next election.
Andersson will face great challenges. Gang violence plagues the suburbs of big cities. Healthcare barely coped with the pandemic and needs to be strengthened, at the same time as the government will have to cope with a promised transition to a zero-emission economy.
(Additional reporting by Johan Ahlander; editing by Niklas Pollard and Andrew Heavens)
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)