Sweden’s Ulf Kristersson was elected prime minister with support from the extreme right
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Sweden’s Riksdag on Monday narrowly elected the conservative leader Ulf Kristersson as prime minister, which led to the country’s first government being supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats.
Kristersson, 58, was elected with a slim majority of three votes, after he announced on Friday an agreement to form a government coalition made up of his moderate party, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals.
The government will be supported in the Riksdag by its far-right ally, the anti-immigration, nationalist Sweden Democrats.
“I am grateful and happy for the trust I have received from the Riksdag and also considerably humbled by the tasks that lie ahead of us,” Kristersson said at a press conference after Monday’s vote.
He is expected to present his new government on Tuesday.
The Sweden Democrats were the big winners in the hard-fought parliamentary election on 11 September.
They emerged as the second largest party with a record 20.5 percent of the vote, only behind the Social Democrats, who have dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s.
The right-wing bloc now has 176 seats in parliament, to its left-wing rivals’ 173.
On Friday, Kristersson’s four-party alliance presented a 62-page roadmap heavily influenced by the far-right agenda. It promises major crackdowns on crime and immigration and the construction of new nuclear reactors.
– Sweden is a country facing several parallel crises at the same time, said Kristersson.
The leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson, told the Riksdag that while his party had preferred to be in government and hold government posts, the policy pursued by the coalition was most important.
“It’s what the government does that matters, not what the government looks like,” he said.
Åkesson accused previous governments, both on the left and the right, of mismanaging the country.
“We are ready to support a new government… because we have ensured, through negotiations, that it will do enough of what is necessary to reverse this trend,” he said.
In its road map, the incoming government said it aimed to reduce the number of refugees resettled in Sweden through UNHCR from 6,400 last year to just 900 a year during its four-year mandate, introduce incentives to encourage migrants to return home and explore the possibility of deportation foreigners based on “abuse”.
Gang violence
It will also examine the possibility of holding asylum seekers in transit centers during their application process, drop Sweden’s target of spending one percent of gross national income on aid and introduce a national ban on begging.
Although the Quartet has presented a united front, its constituent parties have traditionally differed on a number of key policy areas.
Major concessions were made in their joint agreement, mainly to meet the demands of the extreme right.
A major theme in the election campaign was Sweden’s struggle to combat soaring gang shootings.
“We will do everything to stop this,” Kristersson said on Friday.
The roadmap said there should be body searches in certain disadvantaged areas, tougher sentences for repeat offenders, double sentences for certain crimes and anonymous witnesses.
These elements were all major concessions from the small, center-right liberal party.
The Sweden Democrats’ significant influence over the four-party agreement has raised tensions within the Liberals, whose support is also crucial for Kristersson’s survival.
Since his administration will command a slim majority of just three seats in parliament, it would only take a small number of disgruntled MPs to jump ship for the government to fall apart.
Some liberal party members, including the party’s youth union, urged members of parliament to vote against Kristersson on Monday, although they did not.
Outgoing Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, leader of the Social Democrats, has also reached out to the Liberals in the hope of forming a left-wing majority bloc in the Riksdag with their support.
(AFP)