At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven attacked several parties and accused them of exposing Sweden to danger. Exactly where the danger lies in that Stefan Löfven could be forced to resign, he did not say. He only talked about restarting after the pandemic, green transition and more.
Löfven now has two alternatives to form a government, by either announcing by-elections or requesting dismissal. The Prime Minister only has one week to decide before the vote on Monday.
The no-confidence vote was made possible by the Left Party stating that it would support a no-confidence motion as well as the Moderates and Christian Democrats saying that they would support the request for a no-confidence vote that the Sweden Democrats submitted on Thursday morning.
The PM will become the first Swedish Prime Minister to lose a no-confidence vote, after failing to secure majority support in parliament for proposed rental reforms. During the press conference, Löfven lied about Sweden Democrats supporting market-related rentals, but just like the Left Party, SD is against it.
The fragmented parliamentary situation has been evident since the last election in 2018, when it took a full four months to form a government after the President’s tenacious and probably unconstitutional actions. He used Christmas holidays, summer holidays and coffee breaks to stall the process, which required urgency as stipulated and after four failed attempts, by-elections should have been held.
In most of the scenarios now being discussed, everything depends on the Center Party’s attitude. It is obvious that Löfven intends to take the opportunity to get rid of centre-right politics. Then he could get the Left Party on board again, but this presupposes that the PM gives up on the notion of market rentals.
A new election could turn the entire playing field around, but in principle only SD is interested in it, so if Löfven does not announce it for any reason, it can be expected that all parties except SD will be prepared for far-reaching compromises on selected issues. However, there is a risk that this would not be enough and then a new election will be forced even though almost no one wants it.
For the opposition, there is a very important aspect of getting Löfven out of power well before the election. All indications are that the Social Democrats are planning to restrict and control the flow of information through pressure on social media companies. This may in principle make it impossible for any party other than the Social Democrats to win the election. The question is whether the opposition has realized this risk.
On Facebook, the Sweden Democrats commented: “We did not vote out Löfven to create a political crisis. We’re voting against Löfven to get rid of one.”
https://freewestmedia.com/2021/06/21/swedish-prime-minister-faces-no-confidence-vote/