Sweden’s centre-left leader fails in second bid to form government

Social Democratic leader Magdalena Andersson says ‘conditions not in place’ to form government, prolonging deadlock.

The leader of Sweden’s left-wing Social Democratic Party, Magdalena Andersson, has said her efforts to form a government have failed, prolonging a political deadlock a month after parliamentary elections.

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday, Andersson said talks with the three other parties in the country’s left-wing bloc had hit an impasse.

Despite progress, she said she did not believe conditions were in place to “form a government that can be tolerated by parliament”.

It is her second time failing to form a government after Sweden’s parliamentary vote on September 13.

Shortly after the announcement, the country’s parliament speaker, Andreas Norlen, who had tasked Andersson with gauging conditions to form a government, said a vote on whether to make Andersson prime minister would proceed in parliament on Thursday. He conceded that Andersson would likely fail to pass the vote.

Under the Swedish system, a prime minister can secure office so long as a parliamentary majority does not vote against them.

Sweden’s centre-left opposition bloc narrowly defeated outgoing Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s right-wing bloc in last month’s election, winning 176 seats to the right-wing bloc’s 173. However, Andersson’s bloc has struggled to form a government due to competing terms from several of its members. The Centre Party has said it will oppose a government that includes cabinet posts for the Left Party, which has in turn insisted it will only support a left-wing government of which it is a member.

If Andersson fails in Thursday’s vote, Norlen is expected to ask Kristersson, who currently leads a caretaker government, to hold negotiations with other parties.

Speaking to reporters, Norlen said he considered Kristersson a potential next candidate, but the speaker did not wish to commit to that too soon and would “respect the process”.

To succeed, Kristersson would need to convince an opposition party to support him or at least not vote against him.

The speaker of parliament has four attempts at proposing a prime minister for parliament to vote on. If the fourth attempt fails, a snap election must be called.

After Sweden’s 2022 election, negotiations to form a government took more than a month, and those following the 2018 election lasted more than four months.