There’s always worse

If you think NZ politics is sometimes a bit chaotic, consider this: 

Sweden’s first female prime minister, the Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson, has resigned less than 12 hours into the job when her coalition collapsed, plunging the country into further political uncertainty.

Andersson said a decision by the Green party, the junior party in the coalition, to quit had forced her to resign. She added that she had told the speaker of parliament she hoped to be appointed prime minster again as the head of a single-party government.

“I have asked the speaker to be relieved of my duties as prime minister,” Andersson told a news conference. “I am ready to be prime minister in a single-party, Social Democrat government.”

         In a turbulent sequence of events, Andersson had earlier in the day become the first woman elected to the post of prime minister in Sweden after clinching a last-minute deal with the Left party to raise pensions in exchange for its backing in Wednesday’s vote.

The fatal blow came when the Greens’ leader, Per Bolund, said his party could not tolerate the opposition’s “historic budget, drafted for the first time with the far right”, and quit the government. Among other things, the Greens said a planned tax cut on petrol would lead to higher emissions.

That left Andersson, who had taken over as prime minister from Stefan Löfven, as head of a minority coalition backed by the Left and Centre parties, with no option but to hand in her resignation.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse report