S critic says failure to build ties with Left Party was a “huge mistake”

Sweden still has no new government, and frustration is growing within the red-green parties over Social Democratic leader Magdalena Andersson’s handling of the government formation, sources tell SVT.

Annie Ross, who chairs Reformisterna, an influential Social Democratic association on the party’s left, said she understood the Left Party’s frustration and its feeling that it had been misled.

“Many people, myself included, are wondering and worried about how our party is acting, and that it is not showing leadership about what it actually wants,” Ross told SVT.

The deadlock centres on the parties’ so-called red lines. The Left Party is demanding ministerial posts, while the Centre Party has refused to accept that demand. Ross said the Social Democratic leadership should earlier have developed a deeper understanding of the other parties.

“I think they misjudged how firmly drawn those red lines really were,” she said.

Sources in both the Centre Party and the Left Party have expressed dissatisfaction with Andersson’s handling of the negotiations, with several describing her as passive. Both parties want her to say which parties would be included in a government on the left. Social Democratic sources told SVT that doing so could deepen the deadlock.

Ross said Andersson should invite the red-green parties to work out a shared political project, and stressed the need to build stronger ties with the Left Party.

“It is clear that during this parliamentary term we have failed to build relations with the Left Party, and that has been a huge mistake,” she said.

Ross also warned that the Social Democrats and the Left Party might compromise too far to the right in order to accommodate the Centre Party. She said she feared that granting the Left Party ministerial posts in return could allow the Centre Party to secure much of its own agenda.

“I think that would be harmful for Sweden,” she said.

Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist is due to face a vote in parliament on Tuesday as a candidate for prime minister. SVT reported that there was currently little indication she would be approved.