Sweden has now gone 63 days without a new government after its deadlocked September election, and caretaker Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has until Tuesday, November 17, to report on his efforts to form one. The Speaker of Parliament, Andreas Norlén, gave Kristersson another week after his original November 10 deadline passed with no deal in sight.
The September 13 election produced the tightest result in modern Swedish history. Magdalena Andersson’s centre-left bloc won 176 seats in the 349-seat Riksdag against 173 for Kristersson’s governing right, a margin of just three seats. The Social Democrats came first on 28.02% of the vote, but that was one of the party’s weakest results in more than a century, while the far-right Sweden Democrats fell to 17.48% from 20.5% in 2022, their first decline since entering parliament in 2010.
Two candidates already rejected
Andersson was given the first mandate to form a government but handed it back on September 28 after the Left Party declined to hold her bloc together. The Riksdag then rejected her as prime minister on October 15, and on November 3 it voted down Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist by 324 votes to 25. Two of the four permitted formal votes have now been used, and if all four fail an extraordinary election must be held within three months.
Kristersson, who received the exploratory mandate after Ringqvist’s defeat, says he is continuing talks about a government with the Centre Party, Christian Democrats and Liberals, according to Swedish public broadcaster SVT. The Sweden Democrats dropped their demand for cabinet seats on November 6, with leader Jimmie Åkesson saying his party would tolerate a four-party centre-right government without joining it.
The Centre Party holds the key
Thand Ringqvist has asked both Kristersson and Andersson to present detailed plans for governing by 5pm on Friday, November 13, including their policies, how they would finance them and which parties could help implement them. The Centre Party is speaking to both sides and has not endorsed either candidate.
Andersson has proposed a government of the Social Democrats, Centre Party and Green Party, with support from the Left Party outside the cabinet — but the Left Party has threatened to vote against her if it receives no ministerial posts. Kristersson has admitted the negotiations will be difficult, even very difficult, and has not ruled out new elections. A parliamentary vote could take place towards the end of next week.
