Magdalena Andersson is favourite to become Sweden's prime minister when her Social Democrat colleague Stefan Lofven steps down in November, but major challenges face the current finance minister if she is to keep the top job longer than a few months.
If Andersson is picked to head her party in November, she is likely to become Sweden's first female prime minister - 40 years after neighbour Norway got its first woman leader and more than 60 years behind Sri Lanka, which was the first country to do so.A fractured parliament could scupper the budget, while polls show the centre-left bloc lagging the opposition ahead of a general election in September next year.
In decades past, the Social Democrats dominated politics. But centre-left support has ebbed across Europe, while at home the rise of the Sweden Democrats, a populist, anti-immigration party, has fractured traditional allegiances. "If she thinks she's right and someone else is wrong - which in principle is always the case - she is clear about it," the Centre Party's former economic spokesman Emil Kallstrom told Swedish television.Sweden has recovered from the pandemic faster than many countries in Europe, but gang violence and worries over immigration have strengthened the right.Lofven, a former welder and union negotiator who grew up in a foster-home, had the common touch with voters.
The scale of the task - particularly how to green Sweden's industrial economy - could yet be Andersson's trump card.
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