Tomas Ramberg: Reinfeldt’s recipe could bring down Kristersson

Ulf Kristersson tried to project confidence in a united political team while facing a bitter dispute inside Sweden’s Tidö coalition. The effort appeared increasingly strained, with the prime minister insisting that he felt “very secure with the united team” even as his body language and irritation suggested otherwise.

The commentary argues that critics are looking in the wrong place when they blame the current crisis mainly on Kristersson’s promise to give Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson ministerial posts. The decisive choice, it says, came much earlier, when the Moderates prioritized a quick agreement and an image of harmony over a tougher negotiation with the Sweden Democrats.

The comparison is with Fredrik Reinfeldt’s 2006 election strategy. By uniting Sweden’s traditionally divided centre-right parties in the Alliance, Reinfeldt removed a long-standing Social Democratic argument that the conservative parties could not work together. Kristersson tried to revive that formula in 2022, repeatedly presenting the parties on his side as united on crime, energy and immigration.

After the election, however, the coalition treated a rapid agreement as a matter of prestige. A slower negotiation could have produced leaks about disputes and ultimatums, damaging the image of a cohesive team. According to the commentary, the Sweden Democrats gained most from that urgency. The Tidö agreement revealed how far the other parties had conceded and how close the cooperation would become, while the right-wing coalition quickly lost voters and has not recovered them.

When questions about Kristersson’s leadership began to intensify in the spring, the article says he had little choice but to reach a new arrangement with Åkesson over the division of power. Åkesson promised to stop creating uncertainty about who would lead the government, in return for a public commitment that is only partly included in the supplied text.

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Very secure with the united team