Sweden's PM to Resign After Election   09/18 06:24

   

   STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Sweden's left-leaning opposition won a narrow majority in 
the country's national election, a complete vote count showed on Thursday.

   The Swedish Election Authority said the four opposition parties won 176 
seats in the 349-seat Riksdag, Sweden's parliament, in Sunday's election. The 
four parties that make up or support the outgoing conservative-led government 
took 173 seats.

   Center-right Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson posted a letter on X shortly 
after the final results were announced, saying he would resign from his 
position as the head of government.

   Magdalena Andersson, the opposition leader and a former prime minister, said 
that "the Swedish people have voted for a new direction for our country, voted 
for cohesion and against division," Swedish news agency TT reported.

   It was not immediately clear exactly what government NATO's newest member 
will get for the next four years. Sweden, a country of about 10.6 million 
inhabitants, is also a member of the European Union.

   Andersson hopes to regain the prime minister's job, which she lost in 2022. 
Her center-left Social Democrats finished as the biggest single party with 99 
seats, despite losing eight seats.

   But she will still face a complicated task to turn the result into a 
government because of tensions within the left-leaning bloc.

   The opposition's small lead was initially uncertain but was confirmed after 
early votes that didn't arrive at polling stations by Election Day, including 
overseas ballots, were counted.

   Kristersson has led Sweden with a three-party, center-right coalition. The 
parliamentary majority relied on outside support from the Sweden Democrats, an 
anti-immigration party that has far-right roots but has moved toward the 
political mainstream.

   Kristersson had held out the prospect of Cabinet seats for the Sweden 
Democrats this time, if the governing coalition won. However, it was a 
disappointing election for the Sweden Democrats, who dropped into third place 
behind the outgoing prime minister's Moderates and took 62 seats, 11 fewer than 
in the last parliament.

   Andersson faces the task of overcoming differences in the opposition bloc. 
The Center Party, which aligned with the left because it does not wish to 
govern with the Sweden Democrats, also doesn't want to go into government with 
the Left Party at the other end of the spectrum.

   Any combination across the traditional right-left division would also be 
complicated. But there is broad political consensus in Sweden on several major 
issues, such as support for Ukraine and the decision to join NATO, whose 32nd 
member it became in 2024.