Sweden’s search for a government has slowed to a careful crawl. Speaker Andreas Norlén said on Tuesday that caretaker prime minister Ulf Kristersson will report on his exploratory talks on 17 November, a week later than originally planned, and that no decision on the next step will come before Norlén has consulted every other party leader.
The caution reflects the arithmetic of the constitution. The Riksdag gets four attempts to approve a prime minister; if all fail, a fresh election is called automatically. Two have already been spent. Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson lost the first vote in mid-October, and on 3 November the Centre Party’s Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist was rejected by 324 votes to 25.
The deadlock is striking because the red-green side actually won the 13 September election, taking 176 seats against 173 for the parties that backed Kristersson’s outgoing government. Friction inside that winning camp has repeatedly undermined it; the Left Party even helped elect Norlén, a Moderate, as Speaker.
Kristersson, handed the task on 3 November, is now testing whether a non-socialist government could survive. He has admitted that the seat distribution has not moved at all and called the mission “probably very difficult, but perhaps not completely impossible”. In practice, success would likely require the Centre Party to change sides.
Andersson, meanwhile, says things are moving on her side of the chamber and that she is ready to try again. In her view, putting Kristersson to a third ballot only makes sense if it can deliver a cabinet. Each failed ballot tightens the squeeze on every party, because nobody can be sure who would gain from sending voters back to the polls.
