I may have noted, if only on my Twitter feed, that Ros and I had recently found ourselves in Stockholm as a General Election campaign for the Riksdag was underway. The ruling four-party centre-right coalition consisting of the Moderates, the Liberal People's Party (Folkpartiet), the Centre Party (Centerpartiet) and the Christian Democrats were up against a centre-left coalition consisting of the Social Democrats, the Greens, the Feminist Alternative and the Left Party, with the ultra-nationalist and generally beyond the pale Swedish Democrats as an increasingly prominent repository for protest votes.
The election finally took place on 14 September and produced an astonishingly inconclusive result;
- Social Democrats - 113 seats (+1)
- Moderates - 84 seats (-23)
- Swedish Democrats - 49 seats (+29)
- Greens - 25 seats (no change)
- Centre Party - 22 seats (-1)
- Left Party - 21 seats (+2)
- Liberal People's Party - 19 seats (-5)
- Christian Democrats - 16 seats (-3)
The outgoing Coalition were left with 141 seats, the opposition from the left 159 seats, and with 175 needed to gain a majority and the Swedish Democrats ruled out by everyone else, it was time to negotiate.
The Social Democrats reached out to the Centre Party and the Liberal People's Party without success, and concluded that the Left Party was simply unviable as a partner in government. And so, on Friday, Social Democrat leader, Stefan Lofven, announced the formation of an administration consisting of just his party and the Greens, holding just 138 seats, with 211 opposition representatives.
The Greens have never been in government before, the Social Democrats have never been in coalition and, in order to win votes, they will need to win over other parties. Anything that attracts the Left will probably repel the two liberal parties, and vice versa.
Life is going to be very interesting in the coming months, I suspect...
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