134 days is now regularly invoked with reference to the time it took for Stefan Löfven (S) to finally present a government document with the support of the Riksdag in 2018. The record-long period is cited as a parliamentary example of horror, but the situation looks as hopeless now as it did then.
- This is a political leadership issue. It is pathetic that after an election the parties continue with press conferences, cake eating and election campaigning as if it were still going on. The voters have already had their say and delegated their power to them, says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg.
Today's deadlock is rooted in the fact that the governing parties and SD only received 173 Riksdag seats, while the combined opposition received 176. But V demands ministerial posts and C refuses government cooperation with both V and SD - after almost three weeks, nobody seems to have budged.
- The least the voters can expect is that our political leaders should be able to take care of the parliamentary result, but now there is so much calamity instead. And then the whole extra election discussion on that, where almost everyone is raising the bar because it's going to be so terribly difficult, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
All party representatives, including the speaker, have emphasized the importance of resolving the government issue as soon as possible, but the elected leaders say that the fault lies with the other party. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) has argued that the strained world situation makes it particularly urgent to get a government in place for the sake of national security.
- After all, Sweden signs a lot of agreements in almost all international areas and some of them focus on security. There are ongoing processes in which there is now a big hiccup in every department, says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson.
You almost sound disappointed?
- Yes, but it's not supposed to work like this. I don't want to believe that it will take so many speaker rounds, because something must have been learned and there should be a readiness at least in the system. Maybe they can realize that it is more important to stitch together a budget than exactly which parties are in a government.
Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson recalls that in 2018 there was a discussion about how this kind of situation should be avoided in the future. Among other things, about expanding transitional governments' decision-making space for, for example, international agreements.
Formally, the transitional government has the same powers as before the election, but it and the cooperating SD have minority support in the Riksdag and therefore cannot in reality decide on anything politically sensitive. Or "a transitional government mainly makes decisions on ongoing or urgent matters", as the Government Office puts it.
- What happened after the 2018 election is a big, big blip in our parliamentary history and it must not happen again. A transitional government can make the necessary decisions, but as soon as it becomes something bigger, it should be avoided, says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson.
- It's a bit of a rubber stamp around what is possible and not possible, nobody knows, it's a matter of judgement. Should it be something really important, a transitional government would have to find a way to anchor it very tightly.
Why wasn't the matter resolved after 2018?
- There wasn't much to those discussions since then. Once the government crisis was over, people thought "no, this won't happen again".
Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson says he finds it difficult to see V leader Nooshi Dadgostar going back to his voters and saying "there was no change of government because of us". To avoid that, judging by the situation, she would have to erase the party's congress-decided red line on ministerial positions.
- After all, parties primarily want to get through as much as possible of their own policies. Red lines are just another way of saying "this will cost". Politics is the art of the possible, they say, so if you get a lot of politics back, you can back away from red lines and still manage with your skin intact.
