Presentation of proposals to the Prime Minister

TALMANNEN

Honorable members! Let me begin by briefly recapitulating what has happened regarding the government question since election day on September 11.

Laying aside the proposal for Prime Minister

On Thursday, September 15, Magdalena Andersson requested her resignation as Prime Minister, and I decided on this. Thereafter, the process began to form Sweden's 53rd government and appoint Sweden's 35th Prime Minister since the modern office of Prime Minister was established in 1876.

I awaited the final election result from Valmyndigheten before I conducted a so-called "Speaker's round" on Monday, September 19. After that, I gave the leader of the Moderates, Ulf Kristersson, the task of probing the conditions for forming a government that can be tolerated by the Riksdag. The reason was that this had been stipulated during the talks by party leaders from parties that together hold more than half of the mandates in the Riksdag.

On Monday, September 26, the new Riksdag convened for the first time, and I was re-elected as Speaker, for which I am still happy and humbly grateful.

After the opening of the parliamentary session, I called Ulf Kristersson to a meeting to check in on the work regarding the exploratory mandate. I subsequently gave him two weeks for continued explorations. He submitted a report after one week, on October 5, and a new report on October 12. At that time, he reported that the negotiations were essentially completed but that some minor issues remained to be resolved. In the same way that Stefan Löfven was given an extended mandate of two days in January 2019 before he completed his process, I gave Ulf Kristersson an additional 48 hours.

I have said all along that I strive to move the process forward so that Sweden will get a government as quickly as possible, while at the same time I do not want to force the work in a way that prevents the parties from having time to complete their negotiations.

Ulf Kristersson has earlier today informed me that the Sverigedemokraterna, Moderaterna, Kristdemokraterna and Liberalerna have reached an agreement on how Sweden shall be governed during the coming four years. The agreement implies, among other things, that these parties, with a total of 176 mandates in this chamber, are ready to vote for him to be appointed as Sweden's Prime Minister. The proposal for Prime Minister may, as the members are aware, not have 175 mandates against it.

According to Chapter 6, Section 4, first paragraph of the Instrument of Government, it falls upon me to submit a proposal for a new Prime Minister for the Riksdag's approval. I have consulted with representatives for each party group within the Riksdag and deliberated with the deputy speakers and now propose that the Riksdag appoints Ulf Kristersson from Moderaterna as the new Prime Minister, who intends to form a government consisting of representatives from Moderaterna, Kristdemokraterna, and Liberalerna. I have also informed the head of state, His Majesty the King, of this.

The proposal is tabled for the first time shortly. The proposal is tabled for the second time tomorrow, Saturday at 11:00, and the Riksdag will then take a position on the proposal on Monday at 11:00.

If the Riksdag approves my proposal, Ulf Kristersson will deliver his government statement here in the chamber at 9:30 the following day and simultaneously announce which other ministers will be included in the government. Thereafter, the change of government will take place the same day at 13:00 at a change of government council under the leadership of His Majesty the King at the Stockholm Palace. In that case, Sweden's 53rd government will have taken office.

This also means that the formation of the government will have taken 37 days if one counts from election day to the day of the change of government. I have noted that there is some discussion about whether this is long or short. Each person may, of course, make their own assessment. For my part, I note that it partly depends on what one compares it with.

On the one hand, 37 days is longer than the average Swedish government formation of 19 days and longer than we were used to before 2018.

On the other hand, the formation of the government after the 2018 election took 134 days. And 37 is approximately a quarter of 134, that is to say, much shorter. Every process has its own specific conditions, and that process differed from today's in several ways, which of course has affected the time spent.

I also note that we have seen long government formations in many other European countries. In the Netherlands – relevant in light of this week's state visit – it took nine months to form the current government. In Belgium, it has taken even longer. The formation of the current German government was preceded by negotiations for a couple of months. In 2017, it took 123 days to form a government in Norway.

All of this follows a European trend which means that government formations generally take longer and become more complicated. I believe that we in Sweden may perhaps have to get used to the fact that government formations in the future can also take longer than the historical average. This also suggests that contemporary comparisons with countries similar to Sweden can be more relevant than historical Swedish comparisons.

With these words, honorable members, I submit my proposal to the chamber.

This proposal was tabled.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)