Sweden's new prime minister resigns in hours

Magdalena Andersson was announced as leader on Wednesday but resigned after her coalition partner quit the government and her budget failed to pass.

 

Her coalition partner, the Green Party said it could not accept a budget “drafted for the first time with the far-right”.

 

Ms Andersson said that she hoped to try to become prime minister again as a single-party government leader. “There is a constitutional practice that a coalition government should resign when one party quits,” the Social Democrat said on Wednesday.

 

The speaker of parliament said he would contact party leaders on the next move. Ms Andersson was elected as prime minister earlier on Wednesday because under Swedish law, she only needed a majority of MPs not to vote against her.

 

A hundred years after Swedish women were given the vote, the 54-year-old Social Democrat leader was given a standing ovation by sections of the parliament, or Riksdag.