Fewer Than 175 Votes Against

Magdalena Andersson reports to the Speaker of the Riksdag at 11:00 on Tuesday 13 October. The election that gave her side more seats than its rivals was four weeks ago, and it has not yet given her a government. The Riksdag announced the meeting on Sunday. Her report was due on Monday 12 October; she asked to give it a day later and the Speaker, Andreas Norlén, agreed. After the meeting, the notice says, he will consult the deputy speakers on what happens next.

The arithmetic of the chamber is not in dispute. According to SVT’s results page, which marks the count of the 13 September election as final, the four opposition parties hold 176 of the 349 seats: Social Democrats 99, Left 30, Centre 25, Greens 22. The four Tidö parties that backed the outgoing government hold 173: Moderates 70, Sweden Democrats 62, Christian Democrats 22, Liberals 19.

The seats have not turned into a government. Andersson was given the task of exploring one on 18 September. On 28 September she handed it back a few hours before the Riksdag elected its Speaker, SVT reported, after the Left Party said it would vote for Norlén, a Moderate. He was re-elected with 200 votes to 146 for the Social Democrats’ candidate, Johanna Haraldsson, from 346 valid ballots, Nongrata reported. Those are its figures; the arithmetic that follows is this publication’s. 146 is exactly the combined seats of the Social Democrats, Centre and Greens. 200 is three fewer than the Tidö parties and the Left together, and 346 is three fewer than the chamber. The sources reviewed do not say which three members did not cast a valid ballot.

A majority of seats, a split over the cabinet

The obstacle sits between the two parties at either end of Andersson’s side. France 24 reported on 18 September that the Centre Party “will oppose a government that includes cabinet posts for the Left Party,” which has said it will support only a government it sits in. After the Speaker vote, the Left’s deputy leader, Ida Gabrielsson, said the party had backed Norlén for reasons of stability and still supported Andersson as prime minister, according to SVT.

Norlén gave her the task again on Friday 2 October. The four party leaderships met on Friday 9 October at Högberga gård on Lidingö, which TV4 described as the first time all of them had gathered formally. The TT news agency, in a report carried by Sweden Herald, said the meeting did nothing to untangle the differences between the Centre and the Left. TV4 reported that the question of Left ministers was not discussed there, and that several Social Democrats it spoke to expected Andersson to ask for still more time. All of them were unnamed, and her press secretary had nothing to say ahead of the report.

What the vote actually counts

If the exploration ends, the next step is a vote. The Speaker proposes a candidate, and the Riksdag must decide within four days. The test is not whether she has a majority. “Om minst 175 av riksdagens ledamöter röstar nej har riksdagen förkastat förslaget,” reads the Riksdag’s record of the December 2018 vote that rejected Stefan Löfven: if at least 175 members vote no, the proposal is rejected. The government’s own guide puts it the same way: a proposal fails when more than half of all members vote against it. 175 is more than half of 349.

That moves the question. The Tidö parties have 173 seats, two short of rejection even if every one of their members votes no. A rejection needs at least two no votes from Andersson’s side of the chamber. An abstention is not a no, and neither is an absence. A candidate can therefore be approved with a minority of the chamber voting for her.

It has happened to Andersson before. On 24 November 2021, 117 members voted for her, 174 against and 57 abstained, with one absent, AP reported. One vote short of rejection made her prime minister. She resigned hours later, after her government’s budget was defeated and the Greens left the coalition. Surviving the vote and holding a cabinet together are separate tests.

Four attempts, and a date not yet fixed

Norlén has said a vote will come whether or not Andersson succeeds. “Magdalena Andersson och jag är överens om att uppdraget ska avslutas med en omröstning i riksdagen,” he said when he renewed the task, SVT reported: the two had agreed that it should end with a vote in the Riksdag. “If the process is not successful, we need a vote to move forward and increase pressure on the parties,” he said, in TT’s English rendering published by Sweden Herald on Monday. Andersson herself told the Göteborgs-Posten that she considered winning a vote at this stage unlikely, the same report said.

The Speaker has four attempts. If the Riksdag rejects his proposal four times, the government’s guide says, a new election follows, unless an ordinary election is due within three months. No candidate has yet been put to the chamber, so the count of attempts has not started.

The earliest date has moved. On 2 October, SVT gave Wednesday 14 October as the earliest possible vote, and TT repeated that date on Sunday. On Monday, after the report slipped to Tuesday, the Speaker’s press secretary told TT: “Hypothetically, and according to the regulations, a vote is possible on Thursday.” The press secretary added that no sitting of the chamber had been called for Tuesday. TT says the proposal must be tabled twice before the vote, which must come no later than the fourth day after it is presented; this publication has not located that provision of the Riksdag Act, and reports it as TT’s account.

What is not known

None of the reporting reviewed says how the Centre, the Left or the Greens would vote if Andersson’s name were put. None confirms that every Tidö member would vote no. Whether Norlén proposes her this week at all depends on what she tells him at 11:00. On the published seat totals, two no votes from her own side would end the attempt, and nobody has said whose they would be.