Sweden’s prime minister resigns and asks speaker to find a new government

‘A snap election is not what is best for Sweden,’ says Stefan Lofven

Stefan Lofven announces he has asked the parliament speaker to find a new government (Stina Stjernkvist / TT/AP)

The man who has been Sweden’s prime minister since 2014 has resigned and asked the country’s parliament speaker to find a new government.

Stefan Lofven, a Social Democrat, became the first Swedish leader ever to lose a confidence vote in parliament a week ago.

He did not call for an early election as the Swedish Constitution allows him to do and is instead formally stepping down – but will continue in a caretaker role until a new government can be formed.

“A snap election is not what is best for Sweden,” Mr Lofven said. “The speaker will now begin work on proposing a prime minister who can be tolerated by the Riksdag (the assembly). The government will continue to govern the country for now but as the caretaking government.”

Andreas Norlen, the parliament speaker since 2018, will ask party leaders who may be able to form a government. He alone decides which of the party leaders can begin these talks.

It is expected that Mr Lofven, who heads Sweden’s largest party with 100 of Riksdagen’s 349 seats, will start these talks. His cabinet, a Social Democratic-Green coalition, is a minority government that has relied on votes from the small Left Party to pass laws.

The no-confidence motion against Mr Lofven was called by the nationalist Sweden Democrats party – which had criticised the Social Democratic Party for years – and ultimately succeeded when the Left Party withdrew its support from the government over proposed legislation to tackle a housing shortage. Parliamentarians voted 181-109 against Mr Lofven, with 51 abstentions.

The political situation in Sweden now seems deadlocked.

Mr Lofven has been able to get the Left Party back as an ally but the small Liberals, which earlier supported the Social Democratic government, now want a centre-right government. The Conservatives, meanwhile, still want Mr Lofven at the helm but do not want to made deals with the Sweden Democrats or the left-leaning Left Party.

In the centre-right bloc, the Moderates, Sweden’s second largest party, wants its leader Ulf Kristersson as prime minister.

The last time coalition talks took place in Sweden was following the 2018 election that created a deadlocked parliament. It took four months of negotiations to produce a government that Lofven presented in January 2019.

Additional reporting by Associated Press