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LAST UPDATE | 15 Sep 2022
SWEDEN’S SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has handed in her resignation after a right-wing bloc that includes a nationalist, anti-immigration party won a narrow majority in the country’s parliament.
Andersson met with Andreas Norlen, the speaker of Sweden’s 349-seat Riksdag, to formally inform him of her departure.
She will continue in a caretaking capacity until a new government is formed.
Andersson resigned less than a year after she became Sweden’s first female head of government.
Her appointment as Prime Minister had marked a milestone for Sweden, viewed for decades as one of Europe’s most progressive countries when it comes to gender relations, but which had never previously had a woman in the top political post.
Andersson led Sweden’s historic bid to join Nato following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
“I now begin the work of forming a new and strong government,” Kristersson said yesterday as vote tallies were being finalised.
Norlen is expected to ask the leader of the centre-right Moderates, Ulf Kristersson, to try to form a governing coalition.
With 176 seats, 73 of them going to the far-right Sweden Democrats, the four-party coalition will have a slim majority over the left, which won 173 seats, according to a tally by the country’s elections authority that includes 99.9% of voting offices.
The election on Sunday was so close that it took until yesterday for tens of thousands of votes from abroad and those cast in advance to be counted to validate the results.
Never before has a Swedish government relied on the support of the anti-immigration and nationalist Sweden Democrats, who became the big winners of the vote.
With the vast majority of votes counted, the party emerged as Sweden’s second largest behind the Social Democrats, who have dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s.
However, the post of prime minister will in all likelihood go to Kristersson, the leader of the Moderate party, as Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson is unable to unite all four parties to head the government.
Kristersson, a former gymnast, led a major U-turn for his party when initiating exploratory talks in 2019 with the Sweden Democrats and then deepening their cooperation.
The Christian Democrats, and to a lesser extent the Liberals, later followed suit.
At the same time the thorny question remains of whether the far-right would be given cabinet posts, which Akesson said on Sunday was their “goal”.
In a post to Facebook on yesterday, Akesson thanked “friends of Sweden” around the country, and noted that negotiating a new government was “a process that will take the time it needs”.
“Now the work begins of making Sweden great again,” the party leader said.
The head of Italy’s anti-immigrant League, Matteo Salvini, hailed the party’s success.
“Even in beautiful and democratic Sweden, the left is defeated and sent home,” Salvini said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Sweden Democrats rose up out of neo-Nazi groups and the “Keep Sweden Swedish” movement in the early 1990s, entering parliament in 2010 with 5.7% of votes.
Long shunned as ‘pariahs’ on the political scene, the party has registered strong growth in each subsequent election as it made efforts to clean up its image.
Its hardline stance on soaring gang shootings and integration set the tone in this year’s election.
The narrow majority means a right-wing government’s hold on power would be very fragile, with the four parties fiercely opposed on a number of issues, especially the Liberals and Sweden Democrats.
“This is a difficult parliamentary situation,” Gothenburg University political scientist Mikael Gilljam told AFP.
“And then you have parties that don’t like each other, the Sweden Democrats and the Liberals” in the same right-wing bloc, he added.
In such a situation, a few disgruntled MPs could end up flipping the balance of power, and support for the Sweden Democrats has been a divisive issue among parties and voters alike.
“It’s scary, it’s strange… We’re seeing an idiocracy winning more and more ground,” 39-year-old art curator Anna Senno told AFP in Stockholm shortly after Andersson’s announcement.
Behind the Sweden Democrats with 73 seats – 11 more than in the last elections in 2018 – the Moderates have 68 (-2), while the Christian Democrats have 19 (-3) and the Liberals 16 (-4).
On the left, the Social Democrats climbed to 107 seats (+7) after getting 30.3 percent of the vote, ahead of the Left and Centre parties (24 seats each) and the Green Party (18).
Formally, the process of political changeover can only start after Andersson’s official resignation on Thursday.
Then the speaker of the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament, can give Kristersson the task of forming a majority between the four parties, opening a period of negotiations.
The election of the new head of government cannot take place before 27 September at the earliest, when parliament re-opens.
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Bus w*nkers
@Dlow Brown: the picture says it all regarding your comment, putting those 2 words together must’ve gave you a headache
@Anthony Whelan: same could be said about yours. Boring and no creativity
@L-Plate: that’s exactly what he’s like in person
@L-Plate: and your contribution was what again
@Barra O Brien: sorry if anyone I knew had a name like that I’d remember them. Yours doesn’t ring a bell. Thanks
Better post something quickly for the comment section is closed and comments deleted.
@Nick Allen:
ha ha happened to you as well????
@Nick Allen: There was a ‘cool story’ comment deleted earlier. Is that offensive now?!
There are to many traffic lights in Dublin!
@Martin Sinnott: would you rather more crashes??
@Mr. H: in fairness there’s some places in Dublin that have traffic lights 20 metres apart. And as for traffic lights on roundabouts!?
Most of the new lights seem to be pedestrian lights. They’re not there to prevent car crashes. In blackrock there’s 7 sets over 200 meters. It’s ridiculous.
@Mr. H: Too many and badly synced traffic lights can cause driver frustration and lead to drivers making bad decisions causing accidents. Most city accents are at traffic controlled junctions. Where traffic lights don’t exist, motorists instinctively display more caution and accidents tend to be fewer. Nevertheless, there still is a need for traffic lights on certain roads.
@Daragh Cassidy: there was an accident last night on the Temple Hill / Monkstown road junction of Blackrock. A taxi and a car. Proves that traffic lights don’t prevent accidents. Although, I have to admit, traffic lights are needed at this junction.
@Mr. H: no just better usage of less lights
@Martin Sinnott: it’s TOO Martin
Not TO
@Martin Sinnott: I would like more of them. A worrying development last time I was in town was that some sets of pedestrian crossing lights have been removed where Talbot Street crosses the southbound track of the new Luas loop.
@Daragh Cassidy: Yep. Takes nearly an hour to drive the mile or two between Phibsboro and Drumcondra most evenings. As for traffic lights and roundabouts, try negotiating the Donaghmede roundabout in the morning…
Can I just say that dcc’s head of traffic, Brendan O’Brien still had a job in traffic. This is the person the journal described as Dublin’s traffic supremo last year. Probably get this comment deleted by stating the person dcc say is responsible, is actually responsible and is incompetent at his job.
@Gulliver Foyle: we all know its Owen keegan behind every traffic catastrophe that occurs in the city
What on earth are they thinking? The buses being diverted will make no difference after they introduce even longer trams through the small streets of Dublin. It’s the people who make decisions about public transport who use it the least out of all of us.
Here’s a novel idea – build up in places people actually want to live! Plenty of commuters would be only too delighted to live in a high rise where they could walk to work in a few minutes instead of two hours each way from a house share in suburbia. But even mention anything more than four stories tall and the locals have conniptions about incongruence with the skyline and politicians jump on any bandwagon going about “saving” an “iconic” space.
@The Solipsist: It would still be more affordable to live in the suburbs though.
The city centre rents are stratospheric and its easier to bring down cost by sharing a house with four/five than an apartment with two/three.
Do we need so many bus stops in the centre of Dublin? Some of the stops for a single bus, are so close you could stand at one and see the next one. Dublin is such a small city, that it’s possible to walk a short distance to each stop.
I was changing from a Dublin Bus (got off on Dame St) to Luas (Trinity stop) this morning at about 08:30 and there was definitely a lot less traffic about. Was on a bus last week coming towards College Green from Lord Edward St and it crawled from Christchurch for about 10 minutes without evening getting to the old Central Bank, driver advised us to get off if we wanted to walk faster. No such scene this morning, so cautious approval of this change.
@James Patrick Boyle: Without even*
Best be on my way home with that typo.
@James Patrick Boyle: Good to know. Liking the driver who offered the option to get out and walk. Nothing worse than being trapped in traffic on a bus that can’t let you out!
@Fiona Fitzgerald: Hope the kind driver let you off in a safe place and gave you a refund
To avoid all that stress come to Donegal If your are in no hurry to get there as our train service and motorway is still at the objection stage .If you want an ideal life when the only stress will be trying to get a job seeing your children going off to third level and the expense of and the lack of affordable acc.for them After all the years they will probably emigrate When someone needs what should be care that is taken for granted in Dublin is almost a lifetime away Where the scenery is fantastic when the weather allows you to see it Where we have Poloticians who are all afraid of the party whip When you need a long haul flight to visit children who had to go to far off lands it can be 4 or 6 hours to get to the airport Give me the stress of College Green any day
@brian mclaughlin: Puts it in to perspective..
@Harry Corry: Thank you it does indeed That was an edited version
Perfect example of the mess that is Dublin Planning .. There is no joined up thinking, or practical solutions other that a Luas that basically goes 2 directions, ban all the cars and bicycles for all .. The City has been tron up for years with Luas and the extension, soon as done .. oh wait now we have problems .. ok more construction and lets no ban all traffic for other areas .. There needs to be at least a 10 year plan for Dublin and all have to be agreed on it first, plan it properly and then execute .. else we will have chaos .. oh wait now we do ..
@Irish Bob: What?
@Irish Bob: there are plans called the national development plan that’s constantly being wheeled out every political cycle… nothing gets done here. Corruption and incompetence combined with parochial mindsets and lack of imagination or willingness… lethal combination
@Irish Bob: Dublin planning is a mess because anyone forward thinking is ignored Those who Toe the line are promoted lest they expose those who have gone before them same as POLITICS in dail
All buses should terminate at the edge of city say places like the M1 airport exit or near Clare Hall, put large car parks as well so people could drive to there and from there onwards there be trams and cycle paths. Put all the tram routes back.
They have also f##ked up both the north and south quays for this.
The people in charge of Dublin City transport are just making it up as they go along.
Deck chairs on the titanic come to mind
@Marc Power: Did you think up that comment all on your own?You should get a copyright
@brian mclaughlin:
Is your head half empty or half full?
@David Dickson: Good idea for a poll!
SERIOUSLY I was home recently when I saw a 46A in… Phibsboro… It used to go to the Quays, and you’d use those two items at the end of your legs for a few minutes, and hey presto, you could get the 4, 10 or 14 to the park.. Now, most of the bus numbers are changes (12, 12A 22, 22A gone) etc, and more buses crossing the Liffey, hence jamming up the city centre. Same with getting to Landsdowne…. You’d get above mentioned routes to town, then walk… remember that feeling?… to another bus…. to Landsdowne…or Dun Laoghaire….. Dun Laoghaire to the park….. Really??? As for the stops on O’Connell street…. AND Dublin bus STILL has the problem of one packed bus followed by 2 empty ones….. Sort out the cobwebs and see things clearer before tinkering with something. As for that LUAS… using the old train lines was the best thing…then use existing services.. but no, they had to cross the city……..
I see Dublin Bus has re-published a book from it’s 80′s and 90′s past.. Aesop’s Fables… sorry, bus timetables and schedules… It wasn’t working too well then, but it wasn’t broken.. they have tried and (it seems) failed…
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