Magdalena Andersson and the difficult formation of a government in Sweden

Sweden's first female prime minister - and twice: Magdalena Andersson could go down in the history books. Their Social Democrats suffered significant losses in the parliamentary elections on Sunday. At the election party in Stockholm there were initially disappointed faces: only around 28 percent of the vote, the worst result in history. There was only cheering when it became clear that the opposition center-left camp could achieve a majority in parliament.

But the race was so close that even Swedes' voters abroad could have tipped the balance in the other direction. Therefore, it took until Thursday until it was finally clear: the red-green party bloc has a narrow majority of 176 to 173 seats in parliament. As a result, Ulf Kristersson is now expected to resign from the office of Prime Minister soon.

However, it is still unclear how a coalition can be forged from this majority in the red-green camp. All three smaller partners that the Social Democrats are relying on for an alliance are emerging from the election stronger. The Center Party is now particularly important, as it rejects a government together with the Left Party. It is expected in Stockholm that Andersson could now try to involve the Center Party as a supporter of a minority government. But the party had actually ruled out that too if the Left Party took part. The latter, in turn, does not want to support a government of which it is not a part. So it will be difficult.

The 59-year-old Andersson is considered pragmatic and ambitious, and describes herself as a “hard as nails” negotiator and “competitive type”. In November 2021, she became Sweden's first female prime minister, succeeding the resigned Stefan Löfvens. When asked how she did it, she once replied that she was simply in the right place at the right time.

She had previously been finance minister for many years. Andersson has two children with her husband, whom she met at business school. Andersson grew up in Uppsala as the only child of a university lecturer and a teacher. In her youth she was a competitive swimmer. At the age of 16 she joined the social democratic youth association.

As head of government, Andersson went through a turbulent time: just a few months after taking office, Russia invaded Ukraine. Under Andersson, Sweden changed course, gave up its freedom from alliances and applied to join NATO, which Turkey then blocked for a long time. Sweden also began to massively rearm under Andersson's leadership.

But after only about ten months she was voted out again. In the parliamentary elections in September 2022, the right-wing party bloc achieved a narrow majority; Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals agreed on a minority government called the “Tidö Alliance”, which was tolerated by the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats.

Magdalena Andersson had warned urgently about them shortly before the election. These could “completely dominate” the government, as she warned. “And then we’ll get a completely different Sweden.” The background was that the Sweden Democrats were now aiming for government offices. But that probably won't happen. For the first time ever, the right-wing populists suffered a loss of votes in a Reichstag election and were only the third strongest force on Sunday.

In addition, the supposed enemy image doesn't really fit. When it came to the Swedish Democrats' core issues such as migration and crime, the Social Democrats under Andersson voted with the Tidö government in many cases in the last legislative period.

The Swedish Social Democrats had already reversed course in 2016 as a result of the high influx of refugees. Since then, asylum policy has been further tightened by all governments – be they social democratic or conservative.

In recent years, the Social Democrats have also voted in opposition for further tightening. For example, for the abolition of the so-called lane change, i.e. the transition from asylum to labor migration law, as well as for the limitation of humanitarian residence permits, as well as the controversial lowering of the age of criminal responsibility for serious crimes to 14 years. This is how gang crime should finally be curbed.

The Left Party and the Greens, on the other hand, mostly voted against such tightening measures. It will now be all the more difficult for Andersson to forge a government alliance with them. A long government formation is therefore expected in Sweden.