Sweden: Historic victory - Andersson becomes first head of government

For the first time in its history, the Swedish parliament elects a woman to be the top head of government: the social democrat Magdalena Andersson.

Stockholm - it's a novelty even for the otherwise progressive Sweden *.

For the first time in its history, parliament has elected a woman head of government.

Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson becomes the Kingdom's first female prime minister.

The Social Democratic Party had reached an agreement with the Left Party at the last minute on their election.

Magdalena Andersson was previously finance minister in the Swedish government.

The previous head of government, Stevan Löfven, had been in office since 2014.

The 64-year-old politician submitted his resignation just under two weeks ago.

Shortly before, he had also left Andersson to chair the Swedish Social Democratic Party.

Sweden: Magdalena Andersson becomes new Prime Minister

The 54-year-old Magdalena Andersson was given an exploratory mandate to form a government by Sweden’s parliamentary speaker Andreas Norlén after Löfven’s resignation.

Norlén finally proposed her for the highest political office in the country on Monday - despite the fact that an agreement with the left was still being struggled with.

In its history since 1876, the Kingdom of Sweden had a total of 34 Prime Ministers - all of them men.

Magdalena Andersson could achieve something historical with her election.

For this reason and because of her way of doing politics, comparisons with the outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel * have already been made loud.

Anders Lindberg, head of politics at the Swedish daily Aftonbladet, said: “She has a way of arguing that is a little reminiscent of Angela Merkel.

It's not always clear what she means, but she wins in the end. "

Sweden: Magdalena Andersson becomes the new head of government thanks to the Left Party

In order to win the election in the Swedish parliament, it was enough for Magdalena Andersson that there was no majority against her in the Reichstag. The red-green minority government represented there has just under a third of the 349 parliamentary seats. In order to be elected, it was therefore necessary to convince not only the government representatives but also representatives of the Left Party. For their willingness to vote for Andersson, the Left Party was assured that the pensions of low-wage earners in Sweden would be increased. The party leader of the Left Party, Nooshi Dadgostar, had announced her approval on Swedish television the previous evening.

The current legislative period is one of the most unusual that the country with a population of 10 million has ever experienced: due to the rise of the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats, neither of the two classic political camps has a majority.

The formation of a government after the 2018 parliamentary elections therefore took longer than ever: Löfven's red-green minority government was only in place after 134 days.

Magdalena Andersson: About the person

But the problems didn't stop there: First the Corona * pandemic hit in 2020, then Sweden plunged into a government crisis in the summer of 2021, as a result of which Löfven first resigned and was then re-elected by the Reichstag.

(Daniel Dillmann / dpa)