Sweden's speaker taps Centre Party leader to explore forming government

Speaker hands the mandate to the Centre leader

Sweden still has no new government more than a month after the general election of 13 September, which the left bloc won by a narrow margin. On Monday, 19 October, Speaker of Parliament Andreas Norlén gave Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist the task of checking whether a government backed by a cross-party parliamentary majority can be formed. Norlén made the choice following talks held over the weekend with the heads of the eight parties that sit in the chamber. He announced it at a press conference and set the deadline himself: Thand Ringqvist must hand him her conclusions by 26 October, which gives her one week.

Norlén described the job in these words:

“I have asked her to assess the necessary conditions for forming a government that can be accepted by Parliament.”

The mandate is an assessment rather than an appointment as prime minister, and Thand Ringqvist has said she does not want the post herself. The sequence of key dates so far is shown below.

A deadlock despite a narrow left majority

The left bloc holds 176 seats against 173 for the right, yet that margin has not produced a cabinet. Magdalena Andersson, the Social Democratic leader and former prime minister, was the first candidate put to a vote, and on Thursday, 15 October, parliament rejected her candidacy to lead a single-party government. The central obstacle is the Left Party, which wants ministerial posts in any government, while the Centre Party refuses to share the executive with parties deemed extremist. Norlén can put up to four candidates for prime minister to a parliamentary vote, and if the fourth attempt also fails, new elections will have to be called.

The Centre Party's position

The Centre Party finished fourth among the parties in the September vote, yet its leader now has a central role. Her party helped bring down the Social Democratic effort, arguing that the election result did not justify a sharp shift to the left. In an interview with AFP on Thursday, 15 October, Thand Ringqvist said she was open to a government that includes some parties from the right-wing bloc. On Monday, 19 October, she posted on social media that her ambition was to help find a solution rather than to become prime minister, and she said she would now invite all party leaders to talks.

Precedent and the road ahead

Swedish government talks have dragged on before. After the 2022 general election it took 37 days to form a government, and after the 2018 election it took 134 days. Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, a political science professor at the University of Gothenburg, told AFP that there is great impatience and that voters want the process to move at a steady pace. Thand Ringqvist's report is due on 26 October, and if Norlén's four candidacies all fail, a new election must be called.

2018134

202237

2018

134 days

2022

37 days

Data from the article text