On Thursday, the Swedish Riksdag voted against the proposal for a purely Social Democratic government with party leader Magdalena Andersson as Prime Minister.
The result was as expected.
The reason why the Speaker of the Riksdag, Andreas Norlén, called for an election of the Prime Minister is, as Document has reported, that Andersson has been unable to secure enough parties to form a majority government.
This is because the Centre Party does not wish to cooperate with the Left Party.
“Magdalena Andersson is our most likely candidate for Prime Minister, but there needs to be agreement on which policies are to be implemented,” said Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist to Swedish TV4 on Thursday morning.
Magdalena Andersson unable to form Swedish government; election of prime minister to follow
The result of the vote in the Riksdag was:
Yes: 99
No: 248
Abstentions: 0
Absent: 2
Only the Social Democrats voted for their own candidate for the role of Prime Minister.
Magdalena Andersson tells Expressen that the difficult negotiations were to be expected, and that the situation in the Swedish Riksdag is complicated.
“It has been clear to me ever since election night that this would take some time and would probably require a series of votes on the post of Prime Minister,” she said immediately after the vote.
Andersson is now due to have “a meeting at 1.00 pm with a number of colleagues”.
– To discuss how we should proceed with this, but I have a packed schedule of meetings and telephone calls that I will continue with.
