Magdalena Andersson, the Swedish Prime Minister, has formally submitted her resignation letter following a narrow loss to right-wing parties in recent elections, though the final tally has yet to be announced.
It was now up to the Riksdag and Speaker of Parliament Andreas Norlén to oversee Sweden’s formation of a new government, she said at a press conference on Thursday.
She also told Norlén that her door was still open to her conservative challenger, Ulf Kristersson, if he changed his mind and decided to work with her Social Democrats rather than the far-right Sweden Democrats, a populist anti-immigrant party that has gained support.
Meanwhile, the final vote totals from Sunday’s election had not yet been released.
With 99.9% of votes counted from all 6,578 voting districts, the four-party alliance led by Moderate party chief Kristersson was set to take 176 legislative seats, compared to 173 for Andersson’s four-party left-leaning bloc.
A party or bloc needed 175 seats in the Swedish legislature to gain a majority.
Norlén stated that he was moving forward with the next steps in the formation of a government.
He was scheduled to meet with representatives from the eight parliamentary parties after the weekend.
He stated that because the result was so narrow and the final result was not yet available, it was appropriate to wait.
Kristersson was widely expected to be given the authority to form a new government.
Andersson would serve as interim Prime Minister until a new government could be formed.
Representatives from the four conservative-right parties met on Thursday for talks, according to Aftonbladet, with the goal of reaching an agreement on a basis for government within ten days.
After the last parliamentary election in 2018, it took 134 days for Social Democrat Stefan Löfven, Andersson’s predecessor from the same party, to form a government. (NAN)
