Stockholm | Less than eight hours after she was elected by parliament, new Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was forced to resign on Wednesday after a nightmare that saw her budget defeat and the departure of her environmental allies from the government.
There is a constitutional practice whereby a coalition government resigns when a party leaves it. “I don’t want to lead a government whose legitimacy is questionable,” the Social Democrat leader told a news conference.
On the evening of this aborted ruling, Anderson said she hoped to be re-elected to office in a subsequent vote, with a 100% Social Democratic government.
Elected for a few hours as the first woman to this position after several days of already meticulous negotiations, she was the victim of a painful game of political dominoes.
On Tuesday evening, the 54-year-old economist, who until now was the finance minister of her predecessor Stefan Lofven, got the support needed to seize power, thanks to a last-minute deal with the Left Party to increase small pensions.
But another major party, the Center Party, unhappy with the concessions made to the left wing, withdrew its support for the budget, without hampering its rise to power.
The result: the same parliament that elected her in the morning put its budget into a minority in the afternoon, and adopted the budget of the right-wing opposition, which was prepared for the first time with the far-right Democratic Sweden (SD).
Ms. Anderson said she could live with it. But for his environmental ally, the only other party in the minority government coalition, it was unacceptable to be governed by a financial law bearing the character of the far right.
Soon after the budget was defeated, the Environmental Party announced its departure from government, forcing Mrs. Anderson to return her barely earned loincloth.
House Speaker Andreas Norlin said he accepts his resignation and will now contact party leaders before making a decision on how to proceed on Thursday.
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