Ulf Kristersson resigns after Sweden’s left bloc wins 176 seats to 173

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson submitted his resignation to Riksdag Speaker Andreas Norlén on 17 September after the final count of Sunday’s election gave the centre-left bloc 176 seats and his own right-wing bloc 173. The gap was 50,359 votes. Magdalena Andersson, leader of the Social Democrats and prime minister from 2021 to 2022, is now the person who has to try to form a government.

Kristersson had governed for four years with tacit, then open, support from the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. He had said that if he won he would offer that party cabinet posts. The Sweden Democrats lost vote share for the first time since they entered parliament in 2010. That drop, more than any single Social Democrat gain, is what flipped the chamber.

The arithmetic Andersson still has to solve

Andersson’s potential partners are the Left Party, the Centre Party and the Greens. The Centre Party has said it will not sit in a coalition that includes the Left. The Greens are available. Andersson invited the three parties to talks on Thursday and spoke of “a new era of cooperation” and a vote “for unity and against division.” Those are victory-speech words. The Centre’s red line is a coalition-math word.

Kristersson, in his letter to the speaker, said pre-election statements would make several coalitions hard and that the Riksdag would need “constructive openness.” He asked to be relieved at once so that the speaker’s rounds could start. Swedish rules give the speaker the job of testing candidates. If four candidates are rejected, a new election is required. After the 2022 vote it took 37 days to form a government. In 2018 it took 134.

The new Riksdag meets on 28 September and will elect a speaker for the new term. Until a prime minister is tolerated by the chamber, Kristersson’s government sits in a caretaker posture. Policy on crime, immigration and NATO, the three files that defined the last four years, is frozen in the form he leaves it.

What the vote actually changed

Sweden joined NATO in the last parliament. That fact does not reverse because the Social Democrats are back. What can reverse is the tone and the statute book on asylum, gang crime and the role of the Sweden Democrats. Andersson ran against handing ministries to a party with neo-Nazi roots. She won by 50,000 votes in a country of 10 million. That is a mandate to attempt a government. It is not a mandate to ignore the right-wing bloc that still holds 173 seats.

The next hard date is 28 September. The next hard document is a speaker’s proposal that can survive a vote. If the Centre holds its line against the Left, Andersson has to find a minority formula or a confidence arrangement that keeps the Left outside the cabinet and still inside the vote count. That is the job she now has. Kristersson’s job, as of Thursday, is over.