Sweden’s conservatives form a new government after a narrow election win
Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson conceded her camp’s defeat on Wednesday and announced that she would resign
Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson conceded her camp’s defeat on Wednesday and announced that she would resign
The leader of Sweden’s conservatives, Ulf Kristersson, worked on Thursday to form a new government after a narrow election win by a coalition of right-wing and far-right parties.
“I am now starting the work of forming a new and strong government,” Kristersson said on Wednesday as the vote counts were being completed. “Now we’re going to restore order in Sweden!”
With 176 seats – 73 of them going to the far-right Sweden Democrats – the four-party coalition will have a narrow majority over the left, which won 173, according to a tally from the country’s election authority, which includes 99.9% of the vote. .
Sunday’s election was so close that it took until Wednesday for tens of thousands of foreign and advance ballots to be counted to validate the results.
Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson conceded her camp’s defeat on Wednesday and announced that she would resign.
At a press conference, Andersson, leader of the Social Democrats, stated that the right would have a “narrow majority, but a majority nonetheless”.
“So tomorrow I will hand in my resignation as prime minister and the responsibility for the further process will go to the speaker,” Andersson said.
“Make Sweden great again”
Never before has a Swedish government relied on the support of the anti-immigration and nationalist Sweden Democrats, who were the big winners of the vote.
With the large majority of votes counted, the party emerged as Sweden’s second largest after the Social Democrats, who have dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s.
However, the post of Prime Minister most likely goes to the Moderates’ leader Kristersson, because the Sweden Democrats’ leader Jimmie Åkesson cannot unite all four parties to lead the government.
M. Kristersson, a former gymnast, led a major turnaround for his party when he began exploratory talks with the Sweden Democrats in 2019 and then deepened their cooperation.
The Christian Democrats, and to a lesser extent the Liberals, later followed suit.
At the same time, the difficult question remains whether the extreme right would get cabinet posts, which Mr Åkesson said on Sunday was their “goal”.
The Sweden Democrats rose from neo-Nazi groups and the “Keep Sweden Swedish” movement in the early 1990s and entered the Riksdag in 2010 with 5.7% of the vote.
Difficult situation
Long vilified as a “pariah” on the political scene, the party has registered strong growth in each subsequent election as it made efforts to clean up its image.
Its hard-line stance on sky-high gang shootings and integration set the tone for this year’s election.
The narrow majority means that a right-wing government’s grip on power would be very fragile, with the four parties fiercely opposed on a number of issues, especially the Liberals and the Sweden Democrats.
– This is a difficult parliamentary situation, says political scientist Mikael Gilljam at the University of Gothenburg. AFP.
“And then you have parties that don’t like each other, the Sweden Democrats and the Liberals” in the same right-wing bloc, he added.
In such a situation, a few disgruntled Riksdag members can end up tipping the balance of power, and support for the Sweden Democrats has been a divided issue among both parties and voters.
“It’s scary, it’s strange… We see an idiocracy gaining more and more ground,” 39-year-old art curator Anna Senno told AFP in Stockholm shortly after Andersson’s announcement.
Behind the Sweden Democrats with 73 seats — 11 more than at the last election in 2018 — the Moderates have 68 (-2), while the Christian Democrats have 19 (-3) and the Liberals 16 (-4).
On the left, the Social Democrats climbed to 107 seats (+7) after receiving 30.3% of the vote, ahead of the Left and Center parties (24 seats each) and the Green Party (18).
Formally, the political adjustment process can only start after Andersson’s official resignation on Thursday.
Then the Speaker of the Riksdag, Sweden’s Riksdag, can task Kristersson with forming a majority between the four parties and start a negotiation period.
The election of a new head of government cannot take place before September 27 at the earliest, when the Riksdag reopens.