When Pourmokhtari, at 28 Sweden’s youngest-ever minister, released her long-awaiting climate plan in December, the Green Party and the Centre Party’s announcement that they would table a no-confidence vote quickly stole the headlines. 

But when the vote actually happened last week, it fell almost embarrassingly short of the parliamentary majority required, only managing to muster a meagre fifth of MPs. 

Rather than weaken her, Pourmokhtari argued the process had shown what strong backing she had.  

“I feel much stronger after this vote,” she said after the vote. “I now know that we have a clear mandate in the chamber for the climate policy we have put in place.” 

One commentator even said that the vote had increased her chances of becoming the Liberal Party’s next leader. 

As the Social Democrats opted not to back the motion, Sweden’s left-wing opposition, on the other hand, ended up looking weak and disunited. 

So what were the three parties who backed the vote hoping to achieve? 

“It was a political gesture designed to press on what is coming to be regarded by some as one of the current government’s weakest fronts, and that is its environmental policy,” Nicholas Aylott, associate professor in politics at Södertörn University, told The Local, in the Sweden in Focus podcast. 

The climate plan announced just before Christmas had, Aylott said, been criticised by PM Nilsson, the head of the right-wing Timbro thinktank, as well as in the leader pages of the right-wing Svenska Dagbladet newspaper. 

The idea behind launching a no-confidence vote, he argued, was to highlight weakness of the government’s environmental policy.

The Green Party’s new leader Daniel Helldén published an article in Expressen on the eve of the vote, in which he accused Pourmokhtari of being repeatedly dishonest and of breaking Sweden’s Climate Law. 

Aylott argued the vote had been an opportunity for Helldén to boost his profile.   

“I think the attractions of raising this issue up the political agenda by moving this vote of no confidence in parliament, were fairly obvious for the Greens and the Left Party, particularly for the Greens, who have a new leader who wants to enhance his profile,” he said.

“He’s not so well known among many voters and he will obviously see any opportunity to get himself in the headlines and news bulletins as an attractive one.” 

Aylott argued it was unclear the extent to which the gesture had backfired. 

“Whether the vote… can be regarded as a successful move, despite its inevitable defeat, is now open to question, I think, mainly because the Social Democrats opted to abstain,” he said.

“I think this must have been a bit of a disappointment for the Left and the Greens and the Centre Party. I think the effect that it’s had – as several commentators have already pointed out – is that it simply underlines the disunity of the left.” 

“You could say that [the no-confidence] vote in parliament simply underlined the difficulties of rallying all four of these opposition parties behind a common position, even on something that should be one of their strong points and the opposition’s weak points, which is environmental policy.” 

Listen to the episode of The Local’s Sweden in Focus podcast here:

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