The 64-year-old announced on Sunday that he would resign from his position as chairman of the Social Democrats at the beginning of November and then also quit as head of government. The decision had matured in him for a while, said Löfven on Sunday in Akersberga near Stockholm. The succession is open.
At the beginning of summer, the social democrat had already faced the end of his political career. The trigger for the crisis in his minority government was a dispute with the smaller left coalition partner about the rental prices for new buildings. Only a few days after the lost vote, however, he was able to get the necessary support in parliament again.
Next election planned for 2022
After his re-election, Löfven made it clear that the political problems were far from off the table. The situation in the Reichstag was still very difficult, there was no doubt about that, he said at the time. Since then, there have been several speculations about an early departure. The successor is to be decided at a party congress of the Social Democrats. The meeting will take place from November 3rd to 7th. The next regular parliamentary election in Sweden is planned for September 2022.
Only a slim majority
In the current parliament, Löfven’s majority is extremely thin: together, red-green only has 116 of the 349 seats. He can only achieve the slim majority of 175 votes in total with the help of the Left and the Center Party, which support his minority government. However, events such as the crisis in early summer show that everything is on shaky ground.
In recent years it has become much more difficult to find political majorities in Sweden. The classic constellation with two roughly equally strong camps – a left-wing one with the Social Democrats at the top and a bourgeois one under the leadership of the moderates – is gone. With the rise of the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats, everything has become more complicated.
The former trade unionist Löfven became Prime Minister for the first time in October 2014. After the most recent election in 2018, it took several months to reach an agreement with the center and the Liberals. Both actually belong to the bourgeois bloc, but supported Löfven in return for concessions. This also relied on the votes of the left, which however dropped him in the vote of no confidence in early summer.
The agreement with the Center Party and the Liberals is a thing of the past. The center also refuses to allow the Left Party to influence. The Greens, on the other hand, do not like the reform demands to which the center links its support for Löfven. The negotiations on the upcoming state budget were considered particularly contentious.
