By Stine Jacobsen
STOCKHOLM, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will resign after losing the country’s parliamentary election, he said on Thursday, following the announcement of a final vote count.
Centre-left opposition parties won 176 seats in Sunday’s vote for parliament, while Kristersson’s ruling right-wing bloc secured 173 seats, the election authority said earlier as the counting of ballots ended.
“Now it is the speaker who will lead the next stage of the way to a new government. I am herewith requesting that I be relieved of the office of prime minister to allow that work to start immediately,” Kristersson said in a letter posted on social media platform X.
The election result sets the stage for Social Democratic party leader Magdalena Andersson, Sweden’s first woman prime minister in 2021, to make a comeback after four years in opposition.
For the centre-left, however, victory may only be the first step in a long process to form a government.
Of Andersson’s potential backers, the Centre Party will not join a coalition that includes the Left Party. The Green Party is also a potential member of a left-of-centre government.
Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reported that the Social Democrats have invited the other opposition parties for talks, but gave no further details.
Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch, leader of the Christian Democrats, said “it remains to be seen” what happens next, as internal divisions among the centre-left parties could complicate the formation of a new government.
The election pitted a fragmented centre-left against a centre-right bloc led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of the Moderates Party that had planned to bring the far-right into the coalition and continue its four-year crack down on immigration and crime.
However, the Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in the neo-Nazi fringe, saw its share of the vote decline for the first time since it entered parliament in 2010, tipping the vote in favour of the opposition.
The setback for the Sweden Democrats puts Sweden at odds with most of Europe, where the far-right is on the front foot.
All votes for the 349-seat parliament have now been counted, although the result remains subject to formal certification in the coming days.
(Reporting by Sweden newsroom, editing by Terje Solsvik, Louise Rasmussen and Alex Richardson)
