This time should be the right one. The Swedish parliament is due to vote again, Monday, November 29, for the appointment of Magdalena Andersson as new prime minister, after her chaotic resignation last week.
Until now Minister of Finance, the leader of the Social Democrats had been elected on Wednesday morning as the first woman prime minister of the Nordic country, but had to resign seven hours later at the end of a nightmarish day marked by a defeat on her budget , followed by the departure of government environmentalists. A situation that the President of Parliament, Andreas Norlén, has also said ” to regret “ the next day
After having again polled the party leaders, the president of the Riksdag, the only chamber of the Swedish parliament, concluded Thursday that their intentions were unchanged regarding the election of the future prime minister. The three parties that made it possible for him to come to power have in fact let it be known that they would allow his election again. He will therefore once again submit Magdalena Andersson to a vote in Parliament, scheduled from 1 p.m. local.
Barring a last-minute surprise, this 54-year-old economist should be made head of government for good this time, succeeding the resigning Prime Minister Stefan Löfven.
Political domino game
Although elected for a few hours to this post with only one marginal vote before finally having to resign, she had not officially taken office. This traditionally follows after the presentation of the government to the king, which should normally have taken place on Friday.
Elected after several days of delicate negotiations, Mme Andersson was the victim of a painful game of political dominoes. If it had secured in extremis the support necessary to come to power, thanks to an agreement with the Left Party to increase small pensions, the Center Party, unhappy with the concessions made to the left wing, withdrew its support for the budget, without blocking its rise to power.
Consequence: the same Parliament which elected her in the morning put her budget in the minority in the afternoon and adopted that of the right-wing opposition, prepared for the first time with the extreme right of the Democrats of Sweden (SD). In the process, his environmental ally, the only other party in the minority government coalition, slammed the door, deeming it unacceptable to govern with a budget bearing the seal of the far right. This decision then forced Mme Andersson to return his barely acquired apron.
An unprecedented scenario
“There is a constitutional practice whereby a coalition government resigns when a party leaves it. I do not want to lead a government whose legitimacy is questioned ”, she explained at a press conference.
Although used to the complexities of its parliamentarism, the Nordic country had never experienced such a scenario. The succession to the head of Sweden takes place less than a year from the legislative elections of September 2022, which promise to be tight.
Mme Andersson will have to convince voters by then. With some 25% in the polls, the Social Democratic Party retains its rank as the leading political party in Sweden, but is close to its historic lows. He will have to counter his great rival, the conservative Moderates party, in a new configuration. The latter has moved closer to the extreme right-wing Democrats of Sweden and is now ready to govern with his support in Parliament.