Sweden’s government talks are beginning to take shape. Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokraterna) leader Magdalena Andersson has invited the leaders of the three other opposition parties to a joint meeting on forming a new government, as the remaining vote count leaves the opposition on course for 176 seats against 173 for the Tidö parties.
The invitation, sent on Thursday to the Left Party (Vänsterpartiet), Centre Party (Centerpartiet) and Green Party (Miljöpartiet), marks the first clear step towards negotiations between the four parties that backed Andersson as prime minister. The meeting date has not been made public.
Andersson has called all four opposition parties together
Until now, the parties had mostly been talking about each other’s conditions for government. They will now have to start discussing them directly.
Green Party secretary Katrin Wissing confirmed that the party’s two spokespersons will attend Andersson’s meeting.
“We want to be a constructive force in these conversations,” Wissing told reporters, according to Sweden Herald.
Speaking to SVT, Wissing said the four parties now need to sit down and work out the direction of a possible red-green government.
She did not say which parties should actually receive cabinet posts.
“We see that all the parties are needed,” she said.
That distinction matters. The four parties can cooperate in parliament without necessarily all joining the same cabinet, something that may prove essential if Andersson is to reconcile their different demands.
The election result is now very unlikely to change
The invitation came as uncertainty over the parliamentary arithmetic largely disappeared.
SVT’s final election forecast now projects 176 seats for the opposition and 173 for the Tidö parties. According to the broadcaster, the probability that another seat will change sides is now below 0.1%.
The forecast was issued with only four collection districts still being counted. By then, the opposition’s lead in votes had grown to around 42,000. SVT said its model had also taken into account ballots currently considered invalid that could later be approved during the final count.
The result is not yet formally final. The Swedish Election Authority expects to certify the parliamentary election during the weekend after election day. Until then, county administrative boards are completing the final count and checking all ballots again.
But politically, the situation is becoming much clearer: Andersson is entering the government-formation phase with a three-seat parliamentary advantage.
The difficult part is still between the Centre and Left parties
Getting the four leaders into the same room does not resolve the main disagreement between them.
The Left Party has insisted that it wants to participate in an Andersson-led government rather than simply support one from parliament. Deputy leader Ida Gabrielsson said this week that supporting a government from outside in exchange for policy concessions was not an acceptable solution for the party.
The Centre Party has taken almost the opposite position.
Before the election, Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist said she would rather face an extraordinary election than approve a government containing the Left Party. Her preferred model was a centrist coalition involving the Social Democrats, Centre Party, Green Party and Christian Democrats.
The party has nevertheless made clear since election night that its priority is now to negotiate with the Social Democrats rather than with outgoing Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Party secretary Hannes Hervieu has also said that the Centre Party will not support a government dependent on the Sweden Democrats.
That leaves Andersson with a fairly simple mathematical problem and a much more complicated political one.
The Greens say the red lines can be overcome
The Green Party is presenting itself as the party most confident that the dispute can be resolved.
Wissing said the disagreements between the Centre and Left parties would have to be dealt with during the talks rather than treated as permanent obstacles.
“I am convinced that we will be able to untie these knots,” she told SVT.
There is some movement already. Gabrielsson has acknowledged that the Left Party cannot expect to obtain its entire programme in negotiations with the Centre Party and said compromises will be necessary. Earlier this week, she publicly called for the two parties to stop confronting each other through television interviews and instead sit down at the negotiating table.
Andersson has consistently avoided committing herself to a specific coalition. During the campaign, she said she had seen political “red lines come and go” and left open the possibility of a Social Democratic minority government that could seek different parliamentary majorities on different issues.
The election count is ending, the political count is beginning
The final ballots still have to be certified, but the broad outcome of the election is now increasingly difficult to dispute.
That shifts attention from the Election Authority to the parties themselves.
The opposition appears to have the seats needed to replace Kristersson’s government, but those 176 MPs do not yet represent a common governing programme. The Centre and Left parties disagree over who should sit in cabinet, while substantial differences also remain over taxation, nuclear power and labour-market policies.
Andersson’s invitation is therefore only the beginning. But it is an important change from the first days after the election: Sweden’s possible next governing majority is no longer discussing its red lines from separate television studios.
For the first time since the vote, all four parties are being asked to sit around the same table and find out which of those red lines are actually negotiable.
