On Monday, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden welcomed Prime Minister Stefan Löfven at the Royal Palace in Stockholm to accept his resignation.
This means that Löfven has now one week to create a new majority within Parliament to retain his position as Prime Minister.
This crisis was opened at the beginning of June when the Left Party withdrew its support to Löfven, which subsequently created the condition for the Democrat Party to create a motion of no confidence for the Prime Minister, which was joined by other parties, notably the Christian Democrats and the Moderate Party.
The motion was voted on the 21st of June, and for the first time, a vote of no confidence resulted in a government falling. This fall gave the Prime Minister two options: either call a snap election or ask the President of the Parliament to open talks for a new government. Löfven chose the second option and, on the 28th of June, he presented to the King his intent to ask for his resignation to the President of Parliament.
Löfven’s Prime Minister career already started on rocky waters back in 2014, since his party got the most votes, but that wasn’t enough to secure a majority in Parliament. Ever since, he has navigated many crises, including a budget crisis in 2014, a European migrant crisis in 2015 and a national security crisis in 2017.
After the general election of 2018, his role as Prime Minister seemed to be over since the Green Party won the election with a small margin. However, since it wasn’t enough to have a majority in Parliament and the Alliance (made of the Green Party and the Socialist Party) failed to gather enough support, Löfven expressed his intention to remain as Prime Minister and lead a multi-Party Government.
The Prime Minister has a duty to keep the monarch informed of everything happening in government and is regularly granted audiences with the sovereign for this purpose.
