Sweden’s Prime Minister, Stefan Lofven, has been thrown into a vote of no confidence by the country’s parliament, after failing to secure support for his rent reform. The move paves the way for either a speedy election or a caretaker government.
Lovfen was fired by parliament on Monday and became the first Swedish prime minister to ever lose faith.
The proposal against the Prime Minister was launched by the right-wing party Sweden Democrats last week, after the left-wing party withdrew its support for the government due to a controversial rent reform. The plan planned the liberalization of Sweden’s rigid rental system with the removal of rent controls on newly built apartments.
The motion of censure, which required 175 votes in parliament with 349 seats to be approved, was narrowly supported by 181 MEPs.
The Left Party’s move has proved deadly for the shaky minority coalition between Lovfen’s Social Democrats and the Greens. The coalition had to rely on the parliamentary support of the left party, as well as two smaller center-right parties.
Following the vote of no confidence, the Prime Minister now has one week to decide whether to resign, entrusting Parliament’s speakers to form a caretaker government or launch a quick election. Last Thursday, Lovfen said he had not yet decided whether to resign and blew up his former coalition partners over their move. “It is a dangerous path that the left party and the right-wing conservative parties are now choosing,” he told reporters. “They have no common plan for the future.”
However, the Left Party pushed back and accused Lofven that the government had broken up and triggered the crisis with its controversial reform. “It is not the Left Party that has given up the Social Democratic government, it is the Social Democratic government that has given up the Left Party and the Swedish people,” said the party’s leader Nooshi Dadgostar.
Sweden has had a housing shortage for decades, with the country’s central bank consistently describing the housing market as dysfunctional. With rents in the country through a form of collective bargaining, proponents of reforms argued that it was simply unprofitable to build new homes for rent.
Opponents of the proposed reform, including the Left Party, insisted, however, that any changes to the system would lead to rental rents. The government insisted that the measure would only affect new homes built after 2022 and that tenants had nothing to worry about
(RT.com)
Source: sn.dk