In the end, everything happens very quickly in Stockholm.

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven sits in the full ranks of the Reichstag.

Because he wears mouth and nose protection like everyone else, there is hardly any emotion in his face when the future of his government is being discussed.

Not even when the leader of the Left Party, Nooshi Dadgostar, explains at the lectern why she has lost confidence in his government.

Matthias Wyssuwa

Political correspondent for Northern Germany and Scandinavia based in Hamburg.

  • Follow I follow

    So far she had supported the red-green minority government with her party. Again and again, as the television pictures show, she seems to be looking directly at Löfven. Then the MPs press the buttons on their desks and the expected result is official: a majority expresses mistrust in Social Democrat Löfven. 109 of the 349 MPs vote for him, 181 against him, 51 members abstain. And the political crisis is perfect.

    They are the voices of an unlikely alliance that toppled the Stockholm government.

    They come from the ranks of the bourgeois moderates and Christian Democrats, the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats and the Left Party.

    This had only made all of this possible when chairwoman Dadgostar announced last week in the dispute over a reform of tenancy law that she no longer had any confidence in the 63-year-old Löfven.

    Now Sweden has a government crisis - and the Left Party could have paved the way for a bourgeois prime minister, supported by right-wing populists.

    New elections or just resignation?

    However, it is not yet clear whether this will happen. After the vote of no confidence, it is first Löfven's turn: he has a week to either call for a new election in the next three months or simply to resign. Then the President of Parliament could arrange talks between the parties to sound out whether another government alliance could be found in the Reichstag. The next election would normally take place in September next year.

    Ministers or prime ministers have already had to face votes of no confidence eleven times, and this experience is not new to Löfven either - but these applications have always failed so far. So history was made in Stockholm on this Monday. When Löfven appeared in front of the press shortly after the vote, he spoke of a difficult political situation in Sweden. He criticizes the Left Party for its decision. When asked by journalists what exactly he is up to, he does not commit himself. Instead, Löfven keeps referring to the week he has time to make his decision. He wants to talk to his previous partners. He will discuss whether covenants are not possible after all. A new election, he says, is an alternative.

    It is a defeat with an announcement for Löfven and his government. There were hectic negotiations and offers in Stockholm to avert the overthrow of the government. The Left Party, however, stuck to its course. Before the vote in the Reichstag, Dadgostar says her party made most of the concessions and got nothing in return. That is not to be dismissed completely from the hand.