Sweden seeks a new government after the narrow victory of the left.
The centre-left opposition won the parliamentary election in Sweden, held on 13 September, by a very narrow margin. According to the final results, published on 17 September, the four opposition parties won 176 of a total of 349 seats in parliament. The governing parties and their partners won 173 seats. The same day Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced in a letter to the speaker of parliament that he was handing in his resignation.
Kristersson had led the country since 2022, with a minority government of three parties of the centre right. His government survived thanks to the support of the Sweden Democrats, a party that demands a much stricter immigration policy. This time the Sweden Democrats won 62 seats, 11 fewer than last time. It is their first decline since they entered parliament in 2010.
On 18 September the speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlén, asked Magdalena Andersson to form a new government. She leads the Social Democratic Party, which remained the largest in parliament with 99 seats, although it lost eight seats. Andersson was already prime minister in 2021 and 2022, as the first woman in that post in Sweden. She said that she accepted the task with great humility and that she would act constructively.
However, the road to the new government will not be easy. Andersson wants an agreement with the three other parties of the opposition: the Left Party, the Centre Party and the Greens. The problem is that the Left Party demands ministerial posts in the new government. The Centre Party, on the other hand, refuses to sit in the same government as the Left Party. The leader of the Left Party, Nooshi Dadgostar, made it clear that her party would not give in even if that meant a new election.
The new parliament will meet for the first time on 28 September. Then Andersson has to tell the speaker how far the talks have got. The vote on a new prime minister can take place on 29 September at the earliest. If parliament rejects the nominee for prime minister four times, Sweden will have to hold a new election. In 2018 Swedes waited a full 134 days for a new government. After the election in 2022, the new government was ready within 37 days. How long will the search last this time?