Sweden, far right gives up ministries to unblock government

The far-right party Sweden Democrats has officially announced the withdrawal of its requests for ministerial posts, resolving one of the knots that had kept the formation of a new government in Sweden blocked for weeks. The party’s leader, Jimmy Akesson, stated that his party will remain outside the government for the entire duration of the next four-year term.

The move comes after the Swedish Parliament had already held two failed votes to elect the prime minister: one with the candidacy of social democrat Magdalena Andersson, the other with that of centrist Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist. Neither had found the necessary numbers, leaving the country without a government in full exercise of its powers for an extended period.

The withdrawal of ministerial requests by the Sweden Democrats now opens the way for a four-party centre-right government led by Ulf Kristersson, a conservative, which Akesson’s party has said it is ready to tolerate while remaining outside the governing team. It is a formula of external support, not direct participation: the far-right party will continue to carry weight in parliamentary numbers without sitting at the ministerial tables.

The choice marks a difference from the strategy followed by other European far-right forces in recent years, more often oriented toward claiming a direct presence in the government as a condition for their support. In Sweden, after two failed attempts to find an alternative majority, the Sweden Democrats chose the opposite path: giving up ministries in order to ensure that a centre-right government could finally be formed, after an impasse that had already tested the resilience of the country’s parliamentary institutions.

It remains to be seen in the coming days whether Parliament will convert this agreement into a stable confidence vote for Kristersson, after the two attempts already rejected in previous weeks.