BREAKING NEWS: Swedish PM resigns

Swedish Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson has formally submitted her resignation letter following a narrow loss to right-wing parties in recent elections, although the final tally was yet to be announced.

Now it was up to the Riksdag and the Speaker of Parliament Andreas Norlén to oversee the process of Sweden forming a new government, she told a press conference on Thursday.

She also told Norlén that her door remained open to her conservative challenger,  Ulf Kristersson, if he changed his mind and decided to work with her Social Democrats instead of the far-right Sweden Democrats, a populist anti-immigrant party that saw a surge in support.

Meanwhile, the final count from Sunday’s voting had not yet been made known.

However, with 99.9 per cent of votes from all 6,578 voting districts counted, the four-party alliance led by Moderate party chief Kristersson was set to take 176 legislative seats, to 173 for Andersson’s four-party left-leaning bloc.

A party or bloc needed 175 seats for a majority in the Swedish legislature.

Norlén said he was pressing ahead with the next steps in the process of forming a government.

After the weekend, he was due to talk with representatives of the eight parliamentary parties.

He said as the result was so narrow and the final result was  not in yet, it was appropriate to wait.

Kristersson was  expected to receive the mandate to form a new government.

Andersson would  lead an interim government until a new government was in place.

Representatives from the four parties of the conservative-right bloc already met on Thursday for negotiations, according to a report in Aftonbladet newspaper, saying they aim to agree on a basis for government within ten days.

After the last parliamentary election in 2018, it took 134 days before a government was formed under Social Democrat Stefan Löfven, Andersson’s predecessor from the same party. (dpa/NAN)