1. You may have seen Sweden got its first female prime minister today. In a turmoil of political events this is not strictly true.
~ 10am today parliament voted to accept her as prime minister. 6 hours later parliament voted to accept the budget of the opposition(!) parties.
2. After this the green party (Miljöpartiet) announced they would take leave of the government (which was part of the government base that social democrat leader Magdalena Andersson was running with). Reason: refusal to rule with a right-wing budget.
3. Common practice is to resign and have a new vote for prime minister if the government base changes. Which is what Magdalena Andersson did, just 7 hours after she was voted prime minister(!)
Formally, she never took office as prime minister.
4. In Sweden the prime minister takes office at a cabinet meeting chaired by the head of state, Sweden's king. This is known as "skifteskonselj".
It usually takes place within a few days after the vote.
5. As the speaker of the parliament now again has to prepare for a vote for prime minister, Magdalena Andersson's predecessor Stefan Löfvén continues as prime minister for the transitional government.
6. It seems likely Andersson will be voted prime minister again, this time running on a single-party base, without the green party.
But nothing is set yet, not even when and if such a vote will happen. And given this unbelievable day in Swedish politics, expect the unexpected.
7. What we do know is that whatever happens the budget has passed, so if she is voted prime minister a second time she is still a social democrat running the country on a budget proposal by the right-wing coalition.
What a day. 😮
8. How does this happen you ask? Well that's a longer story, but a contributing factor is 8(!) parties in parliament and an extremely close call between blocks, blocks that are unpredictably shifting in constellation and various parties growing tired of compromising.
9. Pertinent to the big picture: Our general election is next year. This is all going on because Stefan Löfvén resigned before the end of his term.
10. When I say parliament in this thread, this refers to Sweden's Riksdag. Read more about the workings here if you're curious:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riksdag
11. The whole ordeal is explained well by @TheLocalSweden here:
thelocal.se/20211124/break…
12. Political scientists are agreeing that Magdalena Andersson did not become Sweden's first female prime minister, yet. The meeting with the king was planned for Friday.
Wikipedia has changed overnight and now appears correct. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalena…
13. Speaker of the Riksdag, Andreas Norlén, has today again nominated Magdalena Andersson for prime minister. The vote will take place on Monday, November 29.
After having spoken to all party leaders his understanding is that everyone will vote the same way they did yesterday.
14. A minute ago Magdalena Andersson was voted (again) prime minister of Sweden.
15. The plan now is that she will take office tomorrow, November 30, during the "skifteskonselj" with the king of Sweden.