Stefan Löfven will go down in Swedish history books, that much is certain.

After the Social Democrat was the first Prime Minister to be overthrown by the Reichstag with a vote of no confidence, he managed to return to office on Wednesday.

He has demonstrated the virtues that are almost classic in Stockholm: wait, negotiate, make a difference, wait.

How long he will remain at the head of the Swedish government is a completely different question.

Matthias Wyssuwa

Political correspondent for Northern Germany and Scandinavia based in Hamburg.

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    176 MPs enabled Löfven to return to office by either voting for him or abstaining.

    173 voted against him, it should have been at least 175 to prevent him.

    The MPs of his Social Democrats and the Greens, with whom Löfven forms a minority government, voted for him.

    Those of the bourgeois center and the Left Party, who had broken with Löfven in the dispute over the rental price policy and thus made the success of the motion of no confidence possible, abstained.

    But already the many statements from the parties and in the speeches before the vote made it clear that it should now be even more difficult for Löfven.

    But Löfven did not just prove on Wednesday that he is not so easy to get down.

    He was born in Stockholm in 1957 and grew up a good 500 kilometers north of the capital in a small community with a foster family in simple circumstances.

    Even as a teenager he was involved with the Social Democrats, but he only became a professional politician late.

    Löfven first worked as a welder and then rose to join the powerful metalworkers' union.

    When the Social Democrats, who were already suffering from shrinking pains, made him chairman in 2012, they were in the opposition.

    Löfven could not lead the party to its old size, but at least it returned to power in 2014.

    Even if his government seems to be only one argument away from overthrowing at least since the 2018 election.

    Pressure on the social democrats

    It will stay that way in the months to come. On September 20, Löfven has to present his budget, but he does not have a majority for it: The center now wants to go into the "constructive opposition". The liberals, who had also tolerated Löfven so far, have already switched back to the bourgeois camp, where the parties are preparing to take over government after the next year's election at the latest - with the support of the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats. Your prospects are good. In the debates about integration and gang violence, they increase the pressure on the Social Democrats. And Löfven has to be careful that the history books won't also say at some point that he was the last Social Democrat in power for a long time.