Sweden has never had a woman as head of government.
Now, with Magdalena Andersson, a prime minister has been elected for the first time.
But a few hours later the tide has completely turned.
Stockholm - The Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson was elected Swedish Prime Minister and resigned on the same day.
A few hours after her election in parliament, the 54-year-old asked for her dismissal on Wednesday due to a withdrawal of her green coalition partner.
But she is striving to become prime minister again, said Andersson at a press conference in Stockholm.
There should now be a new vote on the Prime Minister's office.
Political experts spoke of a unique situation.
Dismissal motion accepted
Parliament's President Andreas Norlén announced that he had accepted Andersson's motion to dismiss.
He now wants to contact the party chairman and discuss the situation.
He wanted to inform about the further procedure on Thursday afternoon.
Andersson was the first woman to be elected Prime Minister in the Stockholm Reichstag on Wednesday morning.
The reason for their unusual move in the evening was that an alternative budget proposal by the opposition has now been approved in parliament.
The government must adhere to these.
As a long-term junior partner of the Social Democrats, the Greens then announced that they would leave the government - because the new budget had been negotiated by the opposition moderates and Christian Democrats with the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats.
For the first time, the Reichstag approved a state budget that was negotiated "with a right-wing extremist party," said one of the two green party leaders, Per Bolund.
According to its co-chair, Märta Stenevi, the party agrees that it cannot sit in a government that is being forced to pursue a policy negotiated with the Sweden Democrats.
"We need to be able to look our voters in the eye," she said.
Support the Greens
In Sweden it is common for a coalition to resign when a party leaves the government.
You do not want to lead a government whose legitimacy is being questioned, said Andersson.
She now hopes to be able to return with a purely social democratic minority government - and pointed out that the Greens still wanted to support her as Prime Minister.
Wednesday had started wonderfully for Magdalena Andersson.
In her election, it was enough for her that no parliamentary majority spoke out against her.
The vote was extremely close - only one vote was missing for a vote against Andersson.
“My driving force is to improve Sweden.
My driving force has always been to fight against injustice in society, "said the 54-year-old after the vote.
The fact that she will be the first woman to become the Swedish head of government comes only "on top of that".
But she also said: "I know what that means for girls who grow up in our country."
For the past seven years, the EU country Sweden had been ruled by Andersson's social democratic party colleague Stefan Löfven.
Andersson, who was born in Uppsala, had been finance minister throughout its red-green minority government.
Löfven then announced in August that he would retire first as head of the party and then as head of government.
At the beginning of November, the 64-year-old initially passed the party chairmanship on to Andersson, and two weeks ago he also submitted his resignation as prime minister.
With his withdrawal, Löfven wants to give his successor the chance to position himself better before the parliamentary elections in September 2022.
Equality between men and women
The Löfven government repeatedly called itself feminist and placed equality between men and women at the center of its work.
But that didn't change the fact that Sweden, unlike the rest of Scandinavia and Germany, was never ruled by a woman - until now.
"This is a historic day for Sweden," said Green MP Annika Hirvonen even before the vote.
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At the time, no one could have guessed that this was not the only reason why the day would be memorable.
Less than seven hours after the vote, the opposition budget proposal received a majority.
Although this budget is based on the proposals of the previous government, almost a quarter of the money earmarked for reforms is to be redistributed next year, including a reduction in the gasoline tax.
Andersson had expected the approval of the alternative budget and said after her election that she believed that the country could also govern the country with the alternative of the opposition.
The Greens, on the other hand, pulled the rip cord.
dpa
