After nearly seven years in power, Stefan Löfven, Sweden’s far left migrant-loving prime minister, has resigned following a no-confidence vote. Humiliatingly, this makes him the first Swedish head of state ever to lose such a motion.

He has now urged Sweden’s parliament to form a new coalition rather than hold elections, which are widely seen as potentially benefitting the anti-migrant Swedish Democrats and other conservative parties. 

‘I have requested the speaker to relieve me as prime minister,’ Löfven said on Monday. ‘It is the most difficult political decision I have ever taken.’ He said that he would remain in a caretaker role, claiming that snap election during the pandemic would not be ‘the best for Sweden’. 

Parliamentary Speaker Andreas Norlén will now initiate a talmansrunda, also known as a speaker’s round, which will allow him four attempts to select a new head of government. If he fails, snap elections will be called.

The no-confidence vote took place on Monday last week after the Left Party, a former supporter of the governing coalition, lost confidence in Löfven. In total, 181 members of the Swedish parliament voted in favour of a motion of no-confidence, while 109 voted against and another 51 MPs abstained.

‘We have ended up in this situation because arrogance and irrationality have taken precedence over the country’s stability and the political will to compromise,’ Nooshi Dadgostar says the Iranian leader of the Left Party in her speech before the vote.

‘It is not the Left Party that has abandoned the Social Democratic government. It is the Social Democratic government that has abandoned the Left Party and the Swedish people,’ Dadgostar added.

Equally keen on elections, the Left Party’s initiative was supported by three conservative parties. However, it was not very easy to form a government last time, and now it looks even more difficult. In Sweden’s last election in 2018, it took four soul-destroying months to see the formation of a government. Oh, the joys of democracy as the pigs fight over first access to the public purse swill. The term coalition immediately reminds one of the saying, ‘A camel is a horse designed by a committee.’

Following the vote, which plunged the hapless Social Democrat-led government into crisis, Löfven told journalists that it would be a difficult task to gather enough parties willing to work together to form a new government.

If parties fail to reach an agreement to form a new government, a snap election must be held no later than three months after the announcement, making September the month that a new national election would likely be held. Regardless of whether a snap election is held, however, the scheduled September 2022 elections will still take place, since extraordinary elections have no impact on fixed election dates.

At present, Sweden’s right-of-centre parties are collectively polling at roughly 47 percent. Although at this point it’s too earlier to tell, this may be just enough popular support to establish a new centre-right ruling more realist coalition hostile to the migrant replacement of all things Swedish.