Although the actual election results have not yet been made public, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has formally submitted her letter of resignation following a close loss to right-wing parties in recent elections.
She stated during a press conference on Thursday that it was now up to the Riksdag and Parliament Speaker Andreas Norlén to oversee the process of Sweden forming a new government.
She also informed Norlén that she remained open to working with her Social Democrats rather than the far-right Sweden Democrats, a populist anti-immigrant party that experienced a rise in support if her conservative opponent Ulf Kristersson altered his mind.
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The exact vote total from Sunday’s election had not yet been disclosed.
However, the four-party coalition led by Moderate Party chief Kristersson was poised to win 176 legislative seats, compared to 173 for Andersson’s four-party left-leaning bloc, with 99.9% of the ballots from all 6,578 voting districts counted.
In order to hold a majority in the Swedish legislature, a party or bloc needed 175 seats.
Norlén declared that he was moving quickly to complete the remaining processes in the formation of a government.
He was scheduled to meet with representatives of the eight parliamentary parties after the weekend.
He claimed that it was reasonable to wait because the outcome was so close and the final results were still pending.
It was anticipated that Kristersson would be given the authority to create a new government.
Until a new government was established, Andersson would serve as its head.
According to a report in the tabloid Aftonbladet, representatives from the four parties that make up the conservative-right bloc already convened on Thursday for talks with the stated goal of reaching an agreement on the foundation for a government within ten days.
After the most recent legislative election in 2018, it took 134 days for Stefan Löfven, a Social Democrat and Andersson’s predecessor from the same party, to form a cabinet.
