Magdalena Andersson becomes Sweden’s first female prime minister
Magdalena Andersson wrote political history last week when she became Sweden’s first female prime minister. On Tuesday, she wrote history for the second time when she got her job back.
Andersson, 54, former finance minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party, made international headlines on Wednesday after she resigned just hours after winning a vote to become prime minister by a narrow margin. The collapse of the incipient government was triggered by the Green Party leaves his coalition.
She will now form a one-party minority government.
“It feels good and I’m eager to get started,” Andersson told reporters at a news conference after being elected, the Associated Press reported.
Sweden is known for its progressive view of gender, but it has never had a woman in the top political position, which makes Andersson’s appointment as prime minister a historic milestone for the nation with 10 million.
In the most recent parliamentary election in 2018, 47 percent of the Swedish members of parliament were women, says the Riksdag’s press service to NBC News. But Sweden is the last Nordic country to have a female prime minister.
Denmark, Finland and Iceland all currently have women as Prime Ministers. Norway’s first Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland took office in 1981.
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Andersson will take over as Prime Minister in a time of political division ahead of a parliamentary election in September. Her Social Democrats have been in power since 2014 with the support of parties united by little more than their desire to prevent the Sweden Democrats, a right-wing populist party, from influencing political agenda and politics.
As a minority leader, Andersson will have to lead one of Sweden’s weakest governments in recent decades with only 100 seats in the Riksdag with 349 seats, which limits her ability to govern because she will have to rely on support from other parties to implement the policy.
She has already said she will focus on three priorities – a welfare system that has been heavily tested by the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and gang violence.
She will also have to live with a budget imposed on her by the opposition.
But Andersson said on Monday that her party has “a long tradition of cooperation with others” and will “be ready to do what is needed to lead Sweden forward.”
Reuters and Impartial Press contributed.