Magdalena Andersson named Swedish prime minister (again)

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STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s Magdalena Andersson was named prime minister for the second time in five days on Monday, after lawmakers accepted her plan to lead a single-party Social Democratic government. 

Andersson was first appointed last Wednesday — when she planned to head a two-party coalition with the Greens — but resigned just seven hours later after failing to get parliamentary backing for her budget and the Greens quit the government in response.  

Andersson narrowly edged Monday’s vote. A majority of 175 votes would have been needed to stop her and, in the event, 173 Swedish lawmakers opposed her. The vote was the first step in a strategy Andersson hopes will lead to victory at a national election scheduled for next September. 

As head of a one-party government, she will now aim to strike deals on an issue-by-issue basis with a disparate range of allies — including the Green, Left and Center Parties who backed her as prime minister — rather than seek to agree broad strategies with those parties as her predecessor and party colleague Stefan Löfven tried to do. 

But that won’t be easy. The messy process which led to Andersson both being appointed and quitting as prime minister on the same day reflected the difficulty she has had uniting allies behind her policy agenda. 

For example, the Green Party and the Centre Party have clashed repeatedly over environmental protection while the Centre Party and the Left Party have radically different views on welfare spending. 

Source: Politico