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2021-11-25 01:59:41
By Ravi Kumar Image Source: Screen Shot
Sweden’s first female prime minister, the Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson, has resigned less than 12 hours into the job when her coalition collapsed, plunging the country into further political uncertainty.
Magdalena Andersson was announced as a leader on Wednesday but resigned after her coalition partner quit the government and her budget failed to pass. Instead, parliament voted for a budget drawn up by the opposition which includes the anti-immigrant far-right.
Andersson said a decision by the Green party, the junior party in the coalition, to quit had forced her to resign. She added that she had told the speaker of parliament she hoped to be appointed prime minister again as the head of a single-party government.
"There is a constitutional practice that a coalition government should resign when one party quits," the Social Democrat said on Wednesday. "I don't want to lead a government whose legitimacy will be questioned. The speaker of parliament said he would contact party leaders on the next move.
Ms Andersson was elected as prime minister earlier on Wednesday because under Swedish law, she only needed a majority of MPs not to vote against her.
A hundred years after Swedish women were given the vote, the 54-year-old Social Democrat leader was given a standing ovation by sections of the parliament, or Riksdag.
Her election at the head of a minority government followed an 11th-hour deal with the opposition Left party, in exchange for higher pensions for many Swedes. She also secured the support of coalition partner the Greens.
Of the 349 members of the Riksdag, 174 voted against her. But on top of the 117 MPs who backed Ms Andersson, a further 57 abstained, giving her victory by a single vote.
A former junior swimming champion from the university city of Uppsala, she began her political career in 1996 as political adviser to then-Prime Minister Goran Persson. She has spent the past seven years as finance minister. Considered extremely competent during seven years as finance minister, Andersson is known for her slogan “Sweden can do better”.
Alongside her studies at the Stockholm School of Economics – and a spell at Harvard – she immersed herself in the Social Democratic party, having joined its youth league aged 16.
In a turbulent sequence of events on Wednesday, Andersson had earlier in the day become the first woman elected to the post of prime minister in Sweden after clinching a last-minute deal with the Left party to raise pensions in exchange for its backing in Wednesday’s vote.
But the small Centre party withdrew its support for Andersson’s budget because of the concessions made to the Left, leaving the budget with insufficient votes to pass in parliament.
The complexities of Swedish politics mean we can't assume we've seen the last of her, though. If there's another prime ministerial vote, Ms Andersson will probably get voted in again. This is because the Green party has promised to support her, despite quitting as a formal coalition partner. But she'd end up in a vulnerable position at the helm of a fragile minority government, and would still have to stick to the right-wing budget already voted on by parliament.
What all this political chaos has underlined is just how divided Swedish politics is right now. We'll have to wait and see whether voters break the deadlock with a significant shift to the right or the left at next year's elections.
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