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Swedish parliament to vote on Stefan Löfven as prime minister

Acting Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, who was ousted last month in a historic no-confidence vote, will get a new chance at convincing the Swedish parliament to accept his government.

Published: 5 July 2021 14:20 CEST
Swedish parliament to vote on Stefan Löfven as prime minister
Parliamentary speaker Andreas Norlén and acting Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. Photo: Stefan Jerrevång/TT

The speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlén, told a press conference on Monday that he would nominate Social Democrat leader Löfven as prime minister, after opposition rival Ulf Kristersson of the Moderate Party last week failed in his attempts to form a new government.

This means parliament on Wednesday will vote on whether or not to reinstate Löfven as prime minister. If successful, the centre-left leader would then be able to step back into the role on Friday.

What may seem like a political game of musical chairs comes after Löfven lost a vote of no confidence on June 21st, following a row with the Left Party over rental laws. Löfven then resigned, triggering a round of talks between party leaders and the speaker, who has the role of proposing prime minister candidates based on an assessment of what a government backed by a parliamentary majority could look like.

If Löfven is voted back in, it will likely be with a wafer-thin margin. He will need 175 members of parliament to either vote for him or abstain (in other words, a prime minister candidate does not need a majority to vote for them, as long as the majority does not vote against them).

But the Swedish parliament is split almost right down the middle. Including independent members closely linked to their former parties, the parties on the right of the spectrum (the Moderates, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Sweden Democrats) together have 174 seats, while the parties to the left (the Social Democrats, Green Party, and Left Party) reach a total of 175 with the support of the Centre Party.

It would only take one person choosing to go against party lines, or indeed to be absent for the vote, for the balance to shift.

And even if Löfven is successful on Wednesday, he will likely have a rocky year ahead of him in the run-up to Sweden’s next general election in September 2022. He has not yet secured support for his autumn budget, with the Centre Party refusing to collaborate with the government’s other potential allies in the Left Party on a budget. Löfven has said he will again resign if his budget proposal falls.

You can catch up with Sweden’s government crisis in The Local’s articles below, or by listening to our podcast Sweden in Focus.

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POLITICS

SURVEY: Here’s how Swedes would vote if an election were held today

Support for the Social Democrats has soared according to a new survey, as support for the government and the Sweden Democrats has dwindled. The Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Greens now have 50 percent of voter support.

Published: 1 June 2023 16:07 CEST
SURVEY: Here's how Swedes would vote if an election were held today

The Social Democrats are the clear winners in the new survey from Statistics Sweden, with an increase of 8.3 percent since the 2022 election and 4 percent since the last survey was carried out in November last year, putting them on 38.6 percent in May 2023.

Staying in the left bloc, the Left Party has also seen a minor increase in support. If an election were held today, it would receive 7.3 of the votes, an increase of 0.6 percent since the 2022 election, or a decrease of 0.3 since November last year.

Along with the Green Party, who would receive 4.1 percent of the vote (down 0.3 percent since November 2022 or 1 percent since the 2022 election in September), the Social Democrats and the Left Party would have exactly 50 percent of the vote if Sweden were to go to the polls today.

The Centre Party, the fourth party in the left bloc, has also seen a drop in support, with a decrease of 2.5 percent since the election and 1.2 percent since November 2022, putting it at 4.2 percent. Along with the Greens, the Centre Party is hovering just over the 4 percent parliamentary threshold.

If the Centre Party were to join the rest of the left bloc in forming a government, the bloc as a whole would have 54.2 percent of the vote, compared to the 48.8 percent of the vote it received in September’s election.

Respondents were asked how they would vote “if an election had been held today”. Statistically significant changes are marked with an asterisk (*). Photo: Statistics Sweden

On the other side of the political divide in the right-wing bloc, the Moderates are the only party to see an increase in support, up 0.2 percent since November 2022 which puts them at 19.1, the same figure as in the September 2022 election.

Its partners in government, the Liberals and Christian Democrats, are both under the 4 percent parliamentary threshold at 3.4 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively. This represents a decrease of 1.2 percent for the Liberals since the election or a 0.7 percent decrease since November 2022, and a decrease of 1.6 percent for the Christian Democrats since the election or 1.2 percent since November.

The Sweden Democrats, who overtook the Moderates as Sweden’s second largest party after the election last year, have also seen a decrease in support of 2.5 percent since the election or 0.2 percent since November, which puts them on a total of 18 percent.

This would mean the Moderates would retake them as Sweden’s second largest party if an election were to be held today.

Sweden’s current governing bloc, the Moderates, Liberals, Christian Democrats with the support of the Sweden Democrats, returned 49.5 percent of the vote in September’s election. This new survey would put it on just 44.2 percent of the vote, meaning it would lose its majority if an election were to be held today.

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