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The Swedish Parliament narrowly elected conservative leader Ulf Kristersson as prime minister on Monday, heading the country’s first government backed by the Sweden Democrats, the far-right formation that gave the surprise on election night last September 11 .
Kristersson, 58, was elected by a slim majority of three votes, after announcing an agreement on Friday to form a governing coalition made up of his Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals.
The Executive will be supported in Parliament by its far-right ally, the anti-immigration and nationalist Swedish Democrats.
“I am grateful and happy for the confidence I have received from Parliament and also considerably humbled by the tasks ahead of us,” Kristersson told a news conference after Monday’s vote.
He is expected to present his new cabinet on Tuesday.
The Sweden Democrats were the big winners in the hard-fought general election on September 11.
They became the second largest party, with a record 20.5% of the vote, behind only the Social Democrats, who have dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s.
The right-wing bloc now has 176 seats in parliament, compared with 173 for its left-wing rivals.
On Friday, Kristersson’s four-party alliance released a 62-page roadmap heavily influenced by the far-right agenda. He promises major measures against crime and immigration and the construction of new nuclear reactors.
???? Sweden has a new Prime Minister: Ulf Kristersson, from the Moderate Party. He replaces the Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson after a pact with Christian Democrats and Liberals and the external support of the ultra-right of SD, which will mark the legislature. https://t.co/YK5o41SFbS
— Emilio Ordiz (@EmilioOrdiz) October 17, 2022
“Sweden is a country that is facing several parallel crises at the same time,” Kristersson said.
Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson told parliament that while his party would have preferred to be in government and hold cabinet posts, what matters most is the policies the coalition pursues.
“What is important is what the government does, not what the government looks like,” he said.
Akesson accused previous governments, both left and right, of mismanaging the country.
“We are ready to support a new government…because we have made sure, through the negotiations, that it will do what is necessary to reverse this trend,” he said.
In his roadmap, the incoming government said he intended to reduce the number of refugees resettled in Sweden through UNHCR from 6,400 last year to just 900 a year during his four-year term, introduce incentives to encourage migrants to go home and explore the feasibility of deporting aliens for “misconduct”.
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It will also look into keeping asylum seekers in transit centers during their application process, drop Sweden’s target of spending 1% of gross domestic product on development aid, and introduce a national ban on begging.
Although the quartet has presented a united front, its component parties have traditionally differed on a number of key policy areas.
Significant concessions were made in their joint agreement, mainly to meet the demands of the extreme right.
One of the main themes of the election campaign was Sweden’s fight against the rise in gang shootings.
“We will do everything we can to stop this,” Kristersson said Friday.
The roadmap said that there should be body searches in some disadvantaged areas, harsher penalties for repeat offenders, double penalties for certain crimes and anonymous witnesses.
All of these elements were important concessions from the small center-right liberal party.
The strong influence of the Sweden Democrats in the four-way deal has caused tensions within the Liberals, whose support is also essential for Kristersson’s survival.
Given that his government will have a slim majority of only three seats in Parliament, it would be enough for a small number of disgruntled deputies to abandon ship for the Executive to fall apart.
Some in the Liberal Party, including the party’s youth league, urged lawmakers to vote against Kristersson on Monday, but that did not materialize.
Outgoing Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, head of the Social Democrats, has also reached out to the Liberals in the hope of forming a majority-left bloc in Parliament with their backing.
*With AFP; adapted from its original English version