The social democrat wants to resign on Thursday.
(Photo: AP)
Stockholm Sweden’s Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has admitted defeat in Sunday’s parliamentary elections and announced her resignation. Conservative leader Ulf Kristersson is applying to succeed him.
In the parliamentary elections, Andersson’s Social Democrats became the strongest political force with 30.4 percent, but the centre-right alliance of conservatives, Christian Democrats, Liberals and the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats achieved a combined majority of 176 seats. Andersson’s alliance of her Social Democrats, the Left Party, the Liberal Center and the Greens only has 173 seats in parliament.
“The provisional election results are clear,” Andersson said and announced that as the leader of the opposition she would seek cooperation with other parties. “My door is open. We can make Sweden better,” she said. In view of the major challenges, however, it is important that Sweden gets a government that is capable of acting as quickly as possible, according to Andersson.
For the first time since entering parliament twelve years ago, the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats will play a key role in forming a government. According to all political observers, the success of the party is due to the dramatic increase in violence in the suburbs of the cities and the failed integration policy.
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With its xenophobic slogans and the call for draconian penalties, the party has apparently struck a chord with many Swedes. Hardly a day goes by without shootouts between hostile gangs. This year alone, 46 people have been killed in such incidents by the end of August. Sweden thus occupies a sad top position in Europe. For all of last year, the death toll from shootings was 45.
>> Read here: Right-wing populist Sweden Democrats are the big winner
The counting of the votes in the elections took an unusually long time due to the extremely close results. Only 47,000 votes separated the two political camps. Conservative leader Kristersson announced that he would start negotiations with the other alliance partners as soon as possible.
However, negotiations to form a government are likely to be difficult. Because the Liberals have so far strictly rejected the participation of the Sweden Democrats, who emerged from the neo-Nazi scene. The parties in the right-wing alliance also do not agree on key issues such as asylum and development aid policies.
Difficult negotiations to form a government are imminent.
(Photo: via REUTERS)
As a result, political observers suspect that Kristersson is aiming for a coalition consisting only of his Conservatives, Christian Democrats and Liberals, while making concessions to the Sweden Democrats in order for them to support him. Minority governments have a long tradition in Sweden. Andersson also ruled without a majority of his own. “We got the mandate for change. Now the work begins with forming an effective government,” explained Kristersson.
Andersson will formally hand in her resignation on Thursday, but will remain in office until a new government is formed. It is not yet clear how long the formation of a new coalition government will take.
In general, Sweden faces major challenges. In addition to the high inflation of nine percent, the consequences of the Ukraine war and escalating gang violence, the country wants to become a member of NATO. In addition, Sweden will take over the EU Council Presidency next January.
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