Sweden hands government-forming mandate to Social Democrat leader Andersson

Sweden's parliamentary speaker, Andreas Norlén, on Friday assigned Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson the task of forming the country's new government, following Sunday's parliamentary election won by the left-wing bloc.

Andersson, 59, became Sweden's first female prime minister in 2021. She will now attempt to build a government together with three other left-leaning parties — the Left Party, the Green Party, and the Centre Party. She said she was taking on the task with great humility and pledged to act constructively to form a government that would carry out the direction voters had chosen while preserving national unity.

A difficult coalition

Forming the government is unlikely to be straightforward, given tensions among the potential coalition partners. The Centre Party has already said it would oppose a government granting ministerial posts to the Left Party, while the Left Party has insisted it will only back a left-wing government that includes its own politicians.

In Sunday's election, the left-wing bloc won 176 of the 349 seats in parliament, while the four right-wing parties that formed or backed the outgoing government took 173 seats.

Norlén said Andersson must report back on her progress on September 28, when the new parliament convenes for its first session and elects a new speaker. Should Andersson fail to form a government, the task could pass to outgoing Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who announced his resignation after the election results were published.

For comparison, government formation took 37 days following the 2022 election, but dragged on for 134 days after the 2018 vote.