Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats (SD), said on Tuesday that his party has not abandoned its demand for ministerial posts in any government it supports, according to Dagens Nyheter. His remarks came as Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of the Moderates (M) met journalists in the Riksdag to discuss his exploratory mandate to form a new government.
Åkesson's statement pushes back on media reports that SD was considering softening its position. Speaking to reporters, he said that if his party is to back a government, it should also be part of it, and that he sees no alternative arrangement that would outweigh the need for SD in government, Dagens Nyheter reported.
Why it matters
Sweden's post-election government formation now hinges on two parties moving positions they have both described as fixed. The Centre Party (C) has said it will not allow a government that cooperates with the Sweden Democrats, while SD insists on cabinet seats as the price of its support.
If neither side shifts, Kristersson will be unable to assemble a non-socialist majority, Dagens Nyheter reports. That would leave the path open to other outcomes — or to prolonged uncertainty — after the centre-right bloc's election setback.
Kristersson: "Likely very difficult"
On election night, Kristersson said that if the red-green parties failed to form a government, he would try to gather a non-socialist majority with the Centre Party's help. When he faced the press on Tuesday about his exploratory task, his tone was far less optimistic.
He now has a week to try to bring the Centre Party into some form of cooperation with the Sweden Democrats, despite the Centre's stated red lines. "I envisage that it will be difficult, probably very difficult," he told journalists in the Riksdag, according to Dagens Nyheter.
The Centre's position was restated the same day by its leader, Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist. She told the news agency TT that the party cannot pave the way for a government that works with SD, Dagens Nyheter reported.
A possible compromise, floated from within the Moderates' youth wing
Not everyone in the centre-right camp sees the deadlock as final. Douglas Thor, a leading figure in the Moderate Youth League (Muf), told Dagens Nyheter he believes there is a route that would let both the Centre Party and the Sweden Democrats justify backing a bourgeois government.
Thor outlined a combination he said could work: a clearly right-leaning policy on forestry and the economy, paired with a migration compromise in which more people who abide by the rules are allowed to stay while more who do not are expelled. In his view, the Centre could both secure the policies it favours and tell voters it had kept both the Left Party (V) and the Sweden Democrats out of government.
That argument runs into the Centre's repeated public commitments. Ringqvist's comment to TT on Tuesday was the latest in a series of statements ruling out a governing arrangement involving SD.
A demand that has not moved
The Sweden Democrats' insistence on ministerial posts has been the other obstacle. Media reports had suggested the party might be prepared to set the demand aside, but Åkesson's comments on Tuesday appeared to close that door.
He framed the demand as a matter of consistency: if SD is to support a government in the way it did over the past four years, it should also hold seats in that government. "We have no plans to move," he said, according to Dagens Nyheter, adding that he found it very hard to imagine anything that would outweigh the case for SD being in government.
The arithmetic leaves Kristersson with little room. His week-long exploratory mandate requires him to find a formula acceptable to a Centre Party that has ruled out SD cooperation and an SD that has ruled out support without cabinet posts.
What to watch: whether either party signals any flexibility before Kristersson's exploratory mandate expires, and whether the Centre responds to arguments like Thor's that a deal could be presented to voters as a way of keeping SD's influence limited.
