Sweden Tries to Square the Circle

Sweden has voted, and the result is a maths problem with no solution. The centre-left bloc around Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson won 176 of 349 seats, a majority of exactly one. Outgoing Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has resigned. The first attempt to form a new government has already failed.

The problem is admirably clear. The Left Party will only back a government in which it gets ministerial posts. The Centre Party will not back any government in which the Left Party gets ministerial posts. Andersson needs both. Speaker Andreas Norlén has nevertheless given her a new exploratory mandate, which essentially means: please solve the same equation again, this time with more coffee.

Coalition talks are the art of trading principles for ministries until you get an alliance stable enough for the next crisis and flexible enough not to hurt anyone.

The actual election losers, the Sweden Democrats, fell from just over 20 to just over 16 per cent. They can now sit back and watch the winners fail at winning. In politics there is little more comfortable than a defeat that others have to manage.