STOCKHOLM —
Sweden’s parliament on Monday
narrowly elected conservative leader Ulf Kristersson as prime minister, leading
the country’s first government to be shored up by the far-right Sweden
Democrats.
اضافة اعلان
Kristersson, 58,
was elected by a wafer-thin majority of three votes, after announcing a deal on
Friday to form a governing coalition comprising his Moderate Party, the
Christian Democrats, and the Liberals.
The government will be supported in parliament by
its far-right ally, the anti-immigration, nationalist
Sweden Democrats.
“I am thankful and glad for the trust I have
received from parliament and also considerably humble before the tasks ahead of
us,” Kristersson told a press conference following Monday’s vote.
He is expected to present his new government on
Tuesday.
The Sweden Democrats were the big winners in the
closely fought September 11 general election.
They emerged as the second-largest party with a
record 20.5 percent of votes, trailing only the Social Democrats, who have
dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s.
The right-wing bloc now has 176 seats in parliament,
to their left-wing rivals’ 173.
On Friday Kristersson’s four-party alliance unveiled
a 62-page roadmap heavily influenced by the far-right agenda. It promises major
crackdowns on crime and immigration and the construction of new nuclear
reactors.
“Sweden is a country that is facing several parallel
crises at the same time,” said Kristersson.
Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Akesson told
parliament that while his party would have preferred to be in government and
holding cabinet posts, the policies the coalition pursued were most important.
“It is what the government does that is important,
not what the government looks like,” he said.
Akesson accused past governments, on both left and
right, of mismanaging the country.
“We are ready to support a new government ...
because we have made sure, through negotiations, that it will do enough of what
is necessary to reverse this trend,” he said.
In its roadmap, the incoming government said it
aimed to cut the number of refugees resettled in Sweden through the
UNHCR from
6,400 last year to just 900 per year during its four-year mandate, introduce
incentives to encourage immigrants to return home, and explore the feasibility
of deporting foreigners based on “misconduct”.
Gang violence
It will also probe the
possibility of keeping asylum seekers in transit centers during their
application process, ditch Sweden’s target of spending 1 percent of gross
domestic income on development aid, and introduce a national ban on begging.
While the quartet has presented a united front, its
constituent parties have traditionally differed on a number of key policy
areas.
Major concessions were made in their joint
agreement, primarily to meet the far-right’s demands.
Anders Lindberg, a political commentator for
left-leaning newspaper Aftonbladet, said that while the Sweden Democrats did
not have any posts in the cabinet it was clear they had set the tone of the
agreement.
“It’s still their policy, and especially in the
areas, which are controversial: like
immigration policy, policy for the police, for the justice system, for the
foreign aid, and so on,” Lindberg told AFP.
A major theme of the election campaign was Sweden’s
struggle to combat soaring gang shootings.
“We will do everything possible to stop this,”
Kristersson said on Friday.
The roadmap said there should be body searches in
some disadvantaged areas, harsher sentences for repeat offenders, double
sentences for certain crimes, and anonymous witnesses.
These elements were all major concessions by the
small, centre-right Liberal party.
The significant influence of the Sweden Democrats
over the four-party deal has sparked tensions within the Liberals, whose
support is also essential for Kristersson’s survival.
As his administration will command a tiny majority
of just three seats in parliament, it would only take a tiny number of
disgruntled MPs to jump ship for the government to crumble.
Some Liberal party members, including the party’s
youth league, urged MPs to vote against Kristersson on Monday, although that
did not happen.
Outgoing prime minister
Magdalena Andersson, the
head of the Social Democrats, has also reached out to the Liberals in the hope
of forming a left-majority bloc in parliament with their backing.
“As the opposition we will monitor the Sweden
Democrats and their government, we will present our own political solutions and
we are always ready to step up and govern if Jimmie Akesson and Ulf Kristersson
fail,” Andersson said in a post to Instagram following Kristersson’s
confirmation.
On the diplomatic front, Kristersson will have to
navigate completing Sweden’s application to NATO which is threatened by a
Turkish veto, and the Nordic country will also take over the EU presidency in
the first half of 2023.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
