STOCKHOLM, 26 Nov. - (ANA) - Swedish Social Democratic party leader Magdalena Andersson will get a second shot at becoming the country's first woman prime minister next Monday, after her first attempt lasted just seven hours. 

 

Andersson is expected to form a minority government made up solely of her Social Democrats, less than a year ahead of September general election. Her first attempt failed after the agreed coalition budget collapsed in parliament.

 

MPs “burst into applause” as Magdalena Andersson, a former finance minister, “wiped away a tear” as she was voted into office following a “last-minute, late-night deal” with the country’s former communist Left Party. But just hours later, her tenure was over after “her Green Party coalition partners decided to leave the government after it failed to pass its budget”.

 

At a press conference after MPs approved her coalition government, Andersson told reporters that it was a “special day”, adding that she was “raring to go”. 

 

But just seven hours later, having tendered her resignation, she told the same group of journalists that she was stepping down out of “respect”, adding: “I do not want to lead a government for which there are reasons to question the legitimacy.”

 

Andersson, who has been dubbed “the bulldozer” of Swedish politics, was elected as prime minister earlier in the day because under Swedish law, she only needed a majority of MPs not to vote against her. A majority could not be mustered to stop her taking office by one vote.

 

Her decision to step aside, however, “followed a turbulent series of events” that began when Sweden’s “Centre Party withdrew its support for Andersson’s budget, due to the concessions made to the Left” in order to form a coalition, The Local reported.

 

The Greens have “said they would back Andersson as prime minister in the new vote”, paving a way forward for her to reclaim the premiership, “but it is unclear how other parties would react”.

 

Sweden has long been considered “a bastion of political stability”, with the Social Democrats coming “first in every election in more than a century”. But it is “facing an extended period of political turmoil as a result of the rapid rise of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats”, according to political observers.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/26 November 2021 - - -