Sweden PM Stefan Lofven Monday resigned from the post after he lost the vote of confidence in the parliament last week. It is reported that he asked the speaker of the parliament to find a replacement as he stepped down from the judiciary.
“I have requested to be dismissed as prime minister. It is the most difficult political decision I have ever taken. With one year left until the election, and an ongoing pandemic, a snap election is not the best thing for Sweden,” he said.
The vote against Lofven was called by the nationalist Sweden Democrats on June 21, this makes him the first PM to have ever been ousted by the opposition MPs. With a score of 181 out of 349 lawmakers voting against him, Lofven could either resign or hold snap elections.
A critic from the opposition, Jimmi Akesson, a Sweden Democrat leader stated,” Prime Minister Lofven’s government was historically weak and “should never have come to power”.
While addressing his last press conference as a PM, he said, a snap election was “not what is best for Sweden,” pointing to the difficult situation the COVID-19 pandemic posed, coupled with the fact that the next general election is a year away.
The 63-year-old Lofven, a former welder and union leader guided the Swedish left-back to power in 2014 and then hung on by moving his party closer to the centre-right after the 2018 elections.