Wednesday November 24th 2021
Greens leave coalition
Swedish head of government resigns
Going fast. Magdalena Andersson has only been Sweden’s first head of government for a few hours when her coalition bursts. The Greens are withdrawing. That has nothing to do with the coalition or even Andersson, but with a budget that has been passed in parliament.
Shortly after her election as the first Swedish head of government, Magdalena Andersson resigned. She asked the President of Parliament Andreas Norlén to be dismissed, but is striving to become Prime Minister again, said the Social Democrat in Stockholm. Norlén approved the Social Democrat’s application for dismissal and announced that he would now contact the party leaders to discuss the situation. He will provide information on how to proceed on Thursday afternoon.
Andersson was the first woman to be elected Prime Minister of Sweden in the Stockholm Reichstag this Wednesday morning. The reason for their unusual move in the evening was that an alternative budget proposal by the opposition has now been approved in parliament. The government must adhere to these. Thereupon the Greens, as the previous junior partner of the Social Democrats, announced that they would leave the government – because the new budget had been negotiated by the opposition moderates, the Christian Democrats and, last but not least, the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats.
Greens: Must be able to look voters in the eye
For the first time, the Stockholm Reichstag approved a state budget that had been negotiated “with a right-wing extremist party,” said one of the two green party leaders, Per Bolund. Co-chair Märta Stenevi said her party agreed that she could not sit in a government that was being forced to pursue policies that had been negotiated with the Sweden Democrats. “We need to be able to look our voters in the eye,” she said.
In Sweden it is common for a coalition government to step down when a party leaves the coalition. You do not want to lead a government whose legitimacy is being questioned, said Andersson. The 54-year-old now hopes to be able to return with a purely social democratic minority government – and pointed out that the Greens still wanted to support her as Prime Minister.