Sweden's parliament will vote on Tuesday on whether Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist should become prime minister, a test that is widely expected to fail. The decision by Speaker Andreas Norlén to put her candidacy to a vote has drawn criticism from parties, Göteborgs-Posten reports. According to the newspaper, the move is part of the Speaker's push to avoid a repeat of the 134-day government formation that followed the 2018 election.
Jonas Hinnfors, professor emeritus of political science, told Göteborgs-Posten that the reaction from the parties matters less than the fact that a vote will take place. He said the parties are upset and surprised, but that the key point is that parliament gets to decide.
Why it matters
Sweden has spent months without a settled government, and the parties remain locked into positions they have refused to abandon. Hinnfors argues that the real pressure to break those deadlocks comes from the prospect of an extra election. Because no one can predict what such a vote would produce, he told the newspaper, parties begin to reconsider their red lines once they reach the final deadline.
That dynamic, he suggested, is what could finally move the process forward. Uncertainty about an election's outcome, rather than goodwill between the parties, is the lever that forces change.
The Speaker's approach
Norlén has said clearly that he wants to avoid a drawn-out formation like the one in 2018, according to Göteborgs-Posten. That earlier episode did have a function, Hinnfors noted: the long period gave parties time to abandon old positions and settle on something entirely new. But progress only came once the Speaker began allowing parliament to vote on different candidates, he said.
Hinnfors does not believe the Speaker's new stance — that a exploratory round should end in a vote — amounts to forcing the process. Given all the deadlocks and red lines, he told the newspaper, nothing will resolve on its own. Everyone is waiting for someone else to move first.
He pointed to the calendar as a source of pressure. Now that all sides know a third vote is only weeks away, he said, that may be what gets the parties talking seriously.
What happens after Tuesday
If Ringqvist's centrist alternative is voted down, as most observers expect, the task passes to Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson. His assignment is also meant to be followed by a vote, though Göteborgs-Posten notes that this is not certain if Kristersson returns and reports that he has failed.
Hinnfors said that if the Speaker sees movement among the red-green parties, he could extend the exploratory phase and hand the task to Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson. The professor expects the process to gain real momentum around the third or fourth vote, and he told the newspaper it could run into December but is unlikely to take much longer than that.
His assessment is that the most likely outcome is the red-green bloc, with its 176 seats, eventually uniting behind Andersson. In his view, the Centre Party would probably have to drop its red line against the Left Party entering government, while the Left Party may have to give ground on key issues and accept centrist policy.
If that proves impossible, Hinnfors said, an early election becomes the likely result — and he judges that prospect to be closer now than it was in 2018.
