Is Sweden’s Left Party serious about blocking a government it isn’t part of?

“Call it an ultimatum if you want,” exclaimed Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar as she laid out in the starkest terms yet that her party plans to insist on ministerial positions in a future government. Is she serious, asks The Local’s Nordic Editor Richard Orange.

Dadgostar, whose parents were refugees from Iran, won the battle over market rents, with the Centre Party in the end agreeing to drop its demand for rent liberalisation. But at the price of generating distrust within her party’s allies.

On Sunday, in SVT’s Agenda programme, Dadgostar was once again causing headaches for her own bloc, stating in the baldest terms yet that her party’s years of being a support party, or stödparti, outside of the government, were over.
“If you want our MPs, then we must sit at the table and sit in the government,” she told the interviewer. “I would never dream of telling Magdalena Andersson or even Muharrem Demirok, ‘You can’t be in it. Let me be prime minister, but all you can do is offer your votes. It doesn’t work that way. That’s not democracy for me.”
The only solution, she said, would be a four-party government also including the Green Party, unless the left side gets enough votes to rule without the Centre Party.

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The problem, as she well knows, is that the Centre Party has so far refused to back a government that even negotiates with the Left Party, let alone enter government alongside them.
The Social Democrats, meanwhile, have only once teamed up formally with the Left Party, when the party leader Mona Sahlin formed a “red-green alliance” with the Left Party and Green Party in 2008, a coalition that was soundly defeated, with the decision to campaign as an alliance that included the Left Party widely blamed.
Is Dadgostar serious? Definitely. The question is how the Social Democrats and Centre Party react.

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Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson and Michael Damberg, the party’s finance spokesman, both to the right of their party, would rather work with the Centre Party. But with the Left Party currently polling at about 8 percent, they may have little choice but to negotiate with them too.
But if Dadgostar puts too much pressure on Centre Party leader, forcing him to end his party’s long refusal to negotiate with hers, this could trigger a leadership challenge. It’s possible his party would then end up in the hands of those who want to switch sides once again, joining a government with the Moderate Party supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats.
The question is whether the Centre Party would then bring its voters with it. Some are so opposed to the Sweden Democrats, they might switch to the Social Democrats or Green Party, so a three-party left-wing government might still be possible, if unlikely.
The right-wing bloc, of course, has an analogous problem.
“We’ve been very clear, after the next election, we will either be a government party or an opposition party,” Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson told Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT on Friday, a point he reiterated in his speech at his party’s conference for local politicians in Norrköping on Saturday.
While the Liberal Party is at least willing to negotiate with the Sweden Democrats, it is so far steadfast in its refusal to share a government with the far-right party after the 2026 election.

Why is no one criticising the government’s plans to slow citizenship awards?
The contrast is quite striking. There was so much opposition to the government’s agreement with the Sweden Democrats to force teachers, nurses, doctors and others to report on paperless migrants that the proposal was dropped last Tuesday.
But after Friday’s announcement in a joint opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter that the government planned to slow down the issuance of new citizenships, there has been barely any reaction at all, either from opposition politicians or in the Swedish media.
Annika Hirvonen, immigration spokesperson for the Green Party, is the only senior politician to comment, saying the government should not “mess around with how it directs government agencies” and that the suggestion it might do so was “enormously problematic”.
Dagens Nyheter’s political commentator Tomas Ramberg noted that the parties had only agreed to slow citizenship awards “to the extent that it is possible”, something he described as a “slippery” turn of phrase. Even if, as suggested in the TV4 article, the government imposed new requirements for security tests, it is very unclear how much, if at all, this would slow down citizenship awards.

But as far as I can see, no political commentator has otherwise mentioned the proposal. It seems the average Swede is more concerned about uncomfortable things they personally might be forced to do than they are of the unfair treatment of immigrants that takes place out of sight.
Politics in Sweden is The Local’s weekly analysis, guide or look ahead to what’s coming up in Swedish politics. Update your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your inbox.

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Comments (1)

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Anders

2024/12/03 17:16

It is clear, people without citizenship are not voting, so no one cares. This is also a proof that Ebba is completely wrong with her great replacement theory, as if she would be right, some parties might raise voice.

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As party leader, Nooshi Dadgostar has been nothing like as accommodating as her mild-mannered predecessor Jonas Sjöstedt. In 2021, a day after her 37th birthday, she ordered her party to join the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats in a vote of no confidence against Sweden’s then Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, forcing him to resign and collapsing the government.
For the Social Democrats, this was the ultimate betrayal, a party of the far-left teaming up with the right-wing bloc in a fit of pique after failing to get their way on a single issue – liberalising rents in newly built apartment buildings.
But for the Left Party it was about regaining self-respect after years when the Social Democrats had taken them for granted, even going so far as to agree a clause with the Centre Party that excluded them from involvement in any negotiations with the government whatsoever.
The Left Party had been expected to give its support and get nothing in return.
Dadgostar, whose parents were refugees from Iran, won the battle over market rents, with the Centre Party in the end agreeing to drop its demand for rent liberalisation. But at the price of generating distrust within her party’s allies.
On Sunday, in SVT’s Agenda programme, Dadgostar was once again causing headaches for her own bloc, stating in the baldest terms yet that her party’s years of being a support party, or stödparti, outside of the government, were over.
“If you want our MPs, then we must sit at the table and sit in the government,” she told the interviewer. “I would never dream of telling Magdalena Andersson or even Muharrem Demirok, ‘You can’t be in it. Let me be prime minister, but all you can do is offer your votes. It doesn’t work that way. That’s not democracy for me.”
The only solution, she said, would be a four-party government also including the Green Party, unless the left side gets enough votes to rule without the Centre Party.
The problem, as she well knows, is that the Centre Party has so far refused to back a government that even negotiates with the Left Party, let alone enter government alongside them.
The Social Democrats, meanwhile, have only once teamed up formally with the Left Party, when the party leader Mona Sahlin formed a “red-green alliance” with the Left Party and Green Party in 2008, a coalition that was soundly defeated, with the decision to campaign as an alliance that included the Left Party widely blamed.
Is Dadgostar serious? Definitely. The question is how the Social Democrats and Centre Party react.
Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson and Michael Damberg, the party’s finance spokesman, both to the right of their party, would rather work with the Centre Party. But with the Left Party currently polling at about 8 percent, they may have little choice but to negotiate with them too.
But if Dadgostar puts too much pressure on Centre Party leader, forcing him to end his party’s long refusal to negotiate with hers, this could trigger a leadership challenge. It’s possible his party would then end up in the hands of those who want to switch sides once again, joining a government with the Moderate Party supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats.
The question is whether the Centre Party would then bring its voters with it. Some are so opposed to the Sweden Democrats, they might switch to the Social Democrats or Green Party, so a three-party left-wing government might still be possible, if unlikely.
The right-wing bloc, of course, has an analogous problem.
“We’ve been very clear, after the next election, we will either be a government party or an opposition party,” Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson told Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT on Friday, a point he reiterated in his speech at his party’s conference for local politicians in Norrköping on Saturday.
While the Liberal Party is at least willing to negotiate with the Sweden Democrats, it is so far steadfast in its refusal to share a government with the far-right party after the 2026 election.
Why is no one criticising the government’s plans to slow citizenship awards?
The contrast is quite striking. There was so much opposition to the government’s agreement with the Sweden Democrats to force teachers, nurses, doctors and others to report on paperless migrants that the proposal was dropped last Tuesday.
But after Friday’s announcement in a joint opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter that the government planned to slow down the issuance of new citizenships, there has been barely any reaction at all, either from opposition politicians or in the Swedish media.
Annika Hirvonen, immigration spokesperson for the Green Party, is the only senior politician to comment, saying the government should not “mess around with how it directs government agencies” and that the suggestion it might do so was “enormously problematic”.
Dagens Nyheter’s political commentator Tomas Ramberg noted that the parties had only agreed to slow citizenship awards “to the extent that it is possible”, something he described as a “slippery” turn of phrase. Even if, as suggested in the TV4 article, the government imposed new requirements for security tests, it is very unclear how much, if at all, this would slow down citizenship awards.
But as far as I can see, no political commentator has otherwise mentioned the proposal. It seems the average Swede is more concerned about uncomfortable things they personally might be forced to do than they are of the unfair treatment of immigrants that takes place out of sight.
Politics in Sweden is The Local’s weekly analysis, guide or look ahead to what’s coming up in Swedish politics. Update your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your inbox.

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