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POLITICS

Meet the 22 ministers in Stefan Löfven’s new (ish) government

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven presented his government on Friday after being reinstated by parliament just two weeks after they toppled him in a no-confidence vote.

Published: 9 July 2021 15:59 CEST
Updated: 9 July 2021 17:29 CEST
Meet the 22 ministers in Stefan Löfven's new (ish) government
Members of the government meeting with the parliamentary speaker, Swedish King and Crown Princess on Friday. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

Löfven said he would present his government declaration, outlining the policies it would pursue, in September, but cited his four key priorities as: work, safety, the climate and welfare.

“This is a challenging and very important time for Sweden. We have a new political situation in our country,” he said in a nod to the tight margins between the two traditional political blocs, which led both to him being voted down in the no-confidence motion and voted back in by just 176 MPs (175 were needed to either vote in his favour or abstain).

No new ministers were appointed in the third Löfven government (the other two came after general elections in 2014 and 2018), which once again is made up of members of the Social Democrats and Green Party, both on the centre-left of the political spectrum.

This means Sweden no longer has a Minister of Rural Affairs. The holder of that post, Jennie Nilsson, resigned so that she could return to her seat in parliament to take part in the vote on Löfven’s candidacy as prime minister. MPs leave their seats when they enter government and are replaced, but Nilsson’s replacement has been absent on long-term sick leave, leaving the seat empty.

Instead of bringing Nilsson back to the post, Löfven handed the responsibility for rural affairs to Minister of Trade and Industry Ibrahim Baylan, and may appoint a new minister when parliament reopens after the summer recess in mid-September. This means Baylan may play a key role in negotiations between junior coalition partner the Green Party and the Centre Party, whose support the government needs to pass its budget, because forestry legislation is one of the sticking points between the two parties.

In the front row (L-R) are Per Bolund, Stefan Löfven, Märta Stenevi, and Ibrahim Baylan. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

The ministers in the government are the following:

Stefan Löfven (Social Democrats), Prime Minister
Per Bolund (Green Party), Minister for Climate and Deputy Prime Minister
Magdalena Andersson (Social Democrats), Finance Minister
Hans Dahlgren (Social Democrats), Minister for EU Affairs
Mikael Damberg (Social Democrats), Interior Minister
Anna Ekström (Social Democrats), Minister for Education
Tomas Eneroth (Social Democrats), Minister for Infrastructure
Matilda Ernkrans (Social Democrats), Minister for Higher Education and Research
Anna Hallberg (Social Democrats), Minister for Foreign Trade 
Peter Hultqvist (Social Democrats), Minister for Defence
Lena Hallengren (Social Democrats), Minister for Health and Social Affairs
Morgan Johansson (Social Democrats), Minister for Justice and Migration
Ann Linde (Social Democrats), Foreign Minister
Ibrahim Baylan (Social Democrats), Minister of Trade and Industry
Amanda Lind (Green Party), Minister for Culture and Democracy
Åsa Lindhagen (Green Party), Minister for Financial Markets and Deputy Finance Minister
Lena Micko (Social Democrats), Minister for Public Administration
Eva Nordmark (Social Democrats), Minister for Labour
Anders Ygeman (Social Democrats), Minister for Energy and Digitalisation
Per Olsson Fridh (Green Party), Minister for Development Assistance
Ardalan Shekarabi (Social Democrats), Minister for Social Security
Märta Stenevi (Green Party), Minister for Equality and Minister for Housing

Löfven had two days to announce his ministers after being voted back in as Sweden’s leader. 

That vote was called after Löfven became Sweden’s first ever prime minister to lose a motion of no confidence after the Social Democrats’ long-term ally the Left Party (which was opposed to suggested changes to Swedish rental laws, the issue that sparked the conflict) sided with the right-wing opposition to topple the government.

Löfven opted to resign rather than call a snap election, citing the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as a reason to avoid prolonged political uncertainty. This sparked rounds of talks between party leaders, and after leader of the opposition Ulf Kristersson abandoned his own bid to form a government, the torch was passed back to the Social Democrat leader.

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POLITICS IN SWEDEN

Why a lottery scandal could change the funding balance in Swedish politics

A Swedish government inquiry this spring stopped short of backing a ban on lotteries to fund political parties. Could a report about unscrupulous selling techniques for the Social Democrats' lottery provide cover for government to push ahead with it anyway?

Published: 16 September 2024 14:32 CEST
Why a lottery scandal could change the funding balance in Swedish politics

Last week, the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper reported that Effective Communications, a telesales company based in Barcelona, had been using heavy-handed techniques to sell the Social Democrats’ Kombispel lottery, for which people subscribe monthly for the chance to win prizes every Friday. 

According to six former workers at the agency, they had to cold call elderly people, who were not properly informed about the fact that they were signing up to a subscription rather than a one-off purchase, at the same time as sales people claimed misleadingly that there was a campaign afoot giving them cheaper tickets, or that they could get tickets at a discounted price. 

The revelations are extremely welcome for Sweden’s government and their support party the Sweden Democrats, reopening the way for a full ban at exactly the point when the government is drawing up its proposal for new lottery legislation.

But they are a disaster for the opposition Social Democrats, which risks losing as much as half of its party funding. 

The Social Democrats’ party secretary Tobias Baudin told DN that he was “furious” when he read the accounts of the sales methods used according to the report, and the party has now sacked the board of the Kombispel lottery, and suspended the use of telemarketing agencies to sell its lotteries.  

“In the future we’re not going to need to investigate this sort of call centre company, because this is never going to happen again,” Baudin said. 

“We expect that Kombispel gets to the bottom of this and finds out if this information is correct,” echoed the party’s group leader, Lena Hallengren. “Of course the task given to them has never been to sell lottery tickets whatever the cost.” 

Shutting off the tap

When the government launched its inquiry into tightening the rules around the lotteries run by political parties, its far-right support party, the Sweden Democrats, were unusually honest about what they were trying to do.  

“We need to shut off the money tap which finances Social Democracy, because they have rigged the whole system,” said Tobias Andersson, the Sweden Democrat MP who chairs the parliament’s committee on industry and trade. “Next year, there will be less money on show at the Sossarnas [Social Democrats’] May Day procession.” 

Nothing in the current rules prevents other parties from running lotteries in the same way as the Social Democrats do, but no other party has had such success. The M-lotteriet lottery the Moderate Party launched in 2020 was an embarrassing failure, bringing in just 4.7 million kronor, a fraction of the 153 million pouring in from the Social Democrats’ Kombilotteriet, Femman och Glädjelotten lotteries combined. 

According to the Dagens Industri newspaper, lotteries brought in half of the Social Democrats’ income in 2021, so bringing in a ban would financially cripple Sweden’s biggest opposition party. 

Too far-reaching

Unfortunately for the government, though, the inquiry it launched in 2023 concluded in March that a ban would go too far, calling instead for increased transparency and tighter rules over selling tickets on credit. 

“In the judgement of the inquiry chair a total ban on party political lotteries would be a much too far-reaching measure,” the chair Gunnar Larsson, a former director-general of Sweden’s Consumer Agency, concluded on in the report on March 1st. 

The report was then put out for consultation, with the deadline for submissions on August 12th, since when the government has been drawing up a proposition which is expected to be sent to parliament before the end of the year. 

Even some high-profile Moderate Party figures have criticised the proposal for a ban, with Ulrica Schenström, a former top political aide to former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, denouncing the idea as undemocratic. 

“I usually hold back from making historical comparisons with periods dominated by authoritarian regime or with countries today like Poland, Hungary and Turkey. But what is being proposed brings to mind regimes which deliberately use government power to weaken and ultimately destroy their political opponents,” she wrote on Facebook last year.

Sven Otto Littorin, a former employment minister, also said that the attempt to use government power to weaken a political opponent was worrying. 

“It is easy to be blinded by the working methods and lack of morals of Kombilotto,” he wrote on Facebook. ” And some think it’s fun to slap S [the Social Democrats] in the face. But it is undeniably a real warning bell when government power is used for such purposes. That’s something one should really be above doing.” 

Ban back on the table 

The story in Dagens Nyheter could not have come at a more convenient time for the government. At exactly the point when it has to decide on whether to overrule the inquiry and push for a ban anyway, a story has broken that gives them justification for doing so.

On the same day that the story was published, Niklas Wykman, the financial markets minister who is responsible for the new law, confirmed that the revelations could reopen moves towards a ban. 

“This once again brings back the question of whether there should be a ban,” he told TT. “The main approach on our side has been that there should be clearer regulations. That was also the approach of the inquiry chair. But this puts the question of a ban back on the table.” 

The Social Democrats have not yet given up the fight, though, with Hallengren reiterating on Thursday that a ban on party lotteries would represent “a threat to democracy”.  

The coming months will show whether the government is ready to ignore accusations that it is using undemocratic measures and take a measure that, while it will doubtless save some people from gambling debt and unscrupulous salespeople, will also throttle the funding of their political opponents. 

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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