One week after a vote of no confidence, the Swedish Prime Minister Löfven submitted his resignation. He wanted to prevent new elections. Now the search for a successor begins – which could offer Löfven a new opportunity.

The Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has submitted his resignation a week after the lost vote of no confidence in parliament. This was announced by the 63-year-old head of the Social Democrats in Stockholm. In view of the pandemic, a new election is not the best for Sweden as there is only one year left until the parliamentary election, he said at a press conference.

After the vote of no confidence, Löfven had a week to choose between resigning and re-election. Observers had expected new elections, but Löfven surprisingly decided to resign. As a result, the entire red-green minority government collapses.

The President of Parliament now has to find a candidate who will be commissioned to form a new government. Löfven could get another chance. “I am available to lead a government that the Reichstag can tolerate,” said Löfven. He left it open with which parties he wanted to form a government. The head of the moderates, Ulf Kristersson, is also working to collect a majority for a civic alliance. If neither of them can prevail in the end, there will be new elections within three months.

Löfven’s previous party alliance was broken due to a dispute over fixed rental prices for new buildings. A majority in the Reichstag had expressed their distrust in him last Monday and overthrew him and his government. It was the first time a prime minister in Sweden was brought down by a vote of no confidence.

Löfven has ruled for seven years. After the parliamentary elections in 2018, the formation of a government was made much more difficult by the strong results of the right-wing populists. It was only after months of negotiations that Löfven found a model in which red-green was tolerated by the Center Party and the Liberals – a novelty because this happened across the traditional block boundaries.

Photo by Björn Nordqvist/ Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)