Swedish PM Lofven faces ouster with no clear govt in waiting

STOCKHOLM: Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lovfen is set to lose power in a confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday, with no clear indication of who will replace him after an inconclusive election that saw a surge by the far right.

Voters delivered a hung parliament in the September 9 election, with Social Democrat Lofven’s centre-left bloc garnering 144 seats, one more than their centreright rivals, the Alliance, whose biggest party is the Moderates.

The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, with 62 seats, are expected to side with the Alliance and vote to remove Lofven in Tuesday’s confidence vote.

“Our previous position that we do not have confidence in him remains,” Sweden Democrat lawmaker Mattias Karlsson said.

If Lofven loses Tuesday’s vote, he will remain as head of a caretaker government until a new administration is in place.

That could take weeks if not months, analysts say.

Sweden Democrats

Swedish politics have been deadlocked since the general election with both mainstream blocs claiming victory and the Sweden Democrats holding the balance of power. The main blocs have rejected offering support to each other and ruled out co-operating with the Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in the white supremacist fringe that has been shunned by all other parties since entering the Riksdag in 2010.

Full story @ timesofoman.com/world