Social Democrats May Regret Winning Swedish Election

Adding to Andersson’s problems is the fact that her party suffered its worst election result in 115 years. With only 28.1% of the vote, it is hovering around 100 seats in the 349-seat parliament. The final count could still alter that total. Falling into double digits would be a symbolic humiliation for Andersson just as she begins talks with her prospective coalition partners.

A Coalition at War with Itself

Her greatest challenge at this point will be to bridge the gap between the Left and Center parties. The Left enters negotiations over forming a government with newfound confidence. With 8.3% of the vote, it recorded its best election result since 2002, a performance that will embolden the party in its longstanding demand for seats in Andersson's new cabinet. Andersson has rejected this demand for a number of reasons.

At the other end of her coalition, Andersson has to contend with the Center Party, which staunchly refuses to support any government in which the Left Party holds cabinet seats. Since Andersson needs all her coalition partners, including the Greens, she now faces perhaps the most serious challenge of her political career.

The rift between the Left and Center parties is not merely about cabinet seats. The two have very different ideological profiles. The Center Party, rooted in traditional European liberalism, wants tax cuts and free-market policies in education and health care. By contrast, the Left Party wants higher income taxes, an additional tax on billionaires and an end to private alternatives in education and health care.

These differences within the left-wing coalition were well known during the election campaign. Despite repeated pressure to explain how she intended to form a government, Magdalena Andersson maintained throughout the campaign that she would explore the parliamentary support available to her as prime minister once the election was over.

She can no longer avoid that question. The clock is ticking for her to prove that she can win a prime-ministerial vote. From 29 September, the Riksdag can hold a maximum of four votes for prime minister. If no candidate secures sufficient support, the speaker is constitutionally obliged to dissolve parliament and call a snap election.

It is highly unlikely that Andersson will ask the speaker to put her candidacy to a vote unless she has already negotiated enough support to survive it. She also has an unusual feature of Sweden's constitution working in her favor. Under the so-called “tolerance rule”, a candidate for prime minister does not need a majority of MPs to vote yes. As long as a majority does not vote no, the candidate is approved and appointed prime minister.

In other words, Andersson's most likely path to approval is to form a minority government consisting solely of Social Democrat cabinet members. This would neutralize the adamant and openly conflicting demands of the Left and Center parties. Both could then abstain when the speaker of the Riksdag asks whether Magdalena Andersson should become the next prime minister. With the center-right alliance holding only 173 seats, there would not be enough votes to reject her.

The Sweden Democrats’ Tactical Losses

The difficulties facing a Social Democrat prime minister trying to form a government are relatively new to Swedish politics. Before the 2010 election, when the nationalist-conservative Sweden Democrats first entered parliament, the Center Party was an integral part of the center-right alliance. The nationalist profile of the Sweden Democrats, however, eventually drove the Center Party across the aisle and into cooperation with the left.

Since 2010, the Sweden Democrats have gained votes in every national election except this one. After exceeding 20% in 2022, they fell to 17.5% this year. Foreign media have portrayed their loss of more than 200,000 votes as an electoral repudiation of their nationalist-conservative policies. Many supporters of the victorious left-wing coalition have made the same argument.

However, this interpretation overlooks an important factor. Many of the votes lost by the Sweden Democrats went to the Liberal Party, another member of the center-right coalition. This movement was part of a phenomenon known as “tactical voting”. When a party is in danger of falling below the 4% threshold for representation in parliament, voters from larger allied parties may choose to support the smaller party instead. The aim is to keep it in parliament and thereby preserve its seats for the broader alliance or coalition.

As a result of the Liberal Party remaining in the Riksdag and even gaining 44,000 votes compared with 2022, the center-right alliance remains a formidable force in Swedish politics. If Magdalena Andersson succeeds in reaching the prime minister's office, she will face a resilient opposition capable of keeping her under constant pressure, particularly given the narrowness of her parliamentary advantage.

Sweden's Anti-Establishment Surge

Beyond her parliamentary challenges, Andersson will also have to contend with an increasingly significant political subculture of anti-establishment parties. Because Sweden's regional and municipal elections are held on the same day as the national election, voters increasingly use the opportunity to divide their support among different parties.

Splitting one's vote between parties has become increasingly common in recent elections. This has helped produce a new generation of parties that, in some cases, are challenging or even outperforming the traditional parties in local and regional elections.

One of the more conspicuous examples is the Örebro Party, named after the city two hours west of Stockholm. After 12 years of representation on the city council, the party decided to make a bid for the national parliament in this year's election. Although the threshold for seats in the Riksdag is 4% of the national vote, an exception applies to parties that win at least 12% in a single electoral district.

Led by its chairman Marcus Allard, the Örebro Party polled at 15% in the Örebro regional election but was unable to translate its local strength into sufficient support in the national contest. Nevertheless, the broader rise of local and regional alternative parties suggests that one could eventually win representation in the Riksdag through the 12% rule.

Separatism Takes Root in the North

For the presumptive Social Democrat prime minister, northern Sweden presents another source of mounting problems. Alternative anti-establishment parties are thriving across the north of the country, with one now openly describing itself as separatist.

In Norrbotten, Sweden's northernmost region, the Sjukvårdspartiet, or Health Care Party, won 10.2% in the election to the regional council. That made it the fourth-largest party, only marginally smaller than the Sweden Democrats.

As its name suggests, the Health Care Party has spent the past 20 years campaigning against national cuts to health care spending. It argues that these cuts have harmed the sparsely populated north of Sweden more severely than the country's large urban regions in the south.

The Health Care Party is represented on 10 municipal councils in Norrbotten, where it sits alongside around half a dozen other alternative parties. None is necessarily ideologically aligned with the Sweden Democrats or the Örebro Party. What they share, however, is an anti-establishment profile, attracting voters amid growing dissatisfaction with the effects of national politics on their communities.

In the town of Dorotea, in Västerbotten just south of Norrbotten, the Dorotea Kommunlista, or Dorotea Municipal List, won 37% of the vote despite having had no previous representation on the municipal council. In Västernorrland, the coastal region south of Västerbotten, the separatist Norrlandspartiet pulled off a similarly striking result. With no previous council seats in the municipality of Kramfors, the Norrland Party came first with 25% of the vote.

This party represents something new in Swedish politics, setting it apart even from other anti-establishment movements. It is openly separatist, proposing that Sweden's northern regions should be granted a formal status within the Swedish state comparable to Scotland's position within the United Kingdom. It also points to the special autonomous status enjoyed by Åland within Finland.

It is not entirely clear from the party's published material how it defines the part of Sweden for which it seeks greater self-government. Conventionally, the term “Norrland” refers to the regions of Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Jämtland, Västernorrland and Gävleborg.

Until now, open separatism has been virtually unheard of in Swedish politics. Sweden has a long tradition, dating back to King Gustav I in the 16th century, of being a strongly centralized nation. The fact that the Norrland Party won council seats in municipalities across Västernorrland as well as representation on the regional council illustrates the growing strength of anti-establishment sentiment, particularly in northern Sweden.

That momentum poses a particular problem for Magdalena Andersson. Her party suffered major election losses in the north. As prime minister, she is therefore likely to pay close attention to the development of anti-establishment parties there, particularly the separatist Norrland Party.