Swedish parties make deal to end months of deadlock

SWEDEN’S Centre and Liberal parties have agreed on a deal to give Social Democrat leader Stefan Lofven a second term as prime minister, potentially ending months of deadlock, the Aftonbladet newspaper reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources. The deal still has to be approved by the parties’ governing committees, the newspaper said.

Parties have been at loggerheads since elections in September delivered a hung parliament. Leaders have up to now failed to agree on how to form a government without the support of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in the white-supremacist fringe and that holds the balance of power.

A deal with Lofven could still face opposition from some Liberal and Centre lawmakers as it would mark the death of the four-party, center-right Alliance, formed in 2004 to end the Social Democrat’s century-long dominance of politics.

It was not clear whether the plan, which Aftonbladet said also includes the Green Party, was for a coalition or for the Social Democrats to form a government with informal support from the two center-right parties, which are part of the Alliance.