SWEDEN: Swedish centre-right election victor Fredrik Reinfeldt faced high expectations yesterday for a job market revival as he took up the task of forming a new tax-cutting government to trim Sweden's welfare state.
Sunday's win by Mr Reinfeldt and his four-party alliance ended 12 years of Social Democrat rule. He has vowed to cut taxes and pare back, but not dismantle, the welfare state to boost jobs.
The election result was historic, and showed a doubling of the vote for the far-right anti-immigrant party, although short of the minimum required to enter parliament. The final vote tally is expected today.
Mr Reinfeldt (41) began the process of forming a government by meeting the speaker of parliament, who formally invited him to build a coalition.
"We have a clear-cut parliamentary situation, something we have not had since the 1970s. This should provide the base for a good [ government formation] process," Mr Reinfeldt said.
Mr Reinfeldt, leader of the Moderate Party, will be prime minister, but he and coalition partners the Folk Liberals, the Centre and Christian Democrats have to share out other posts.
The alliance hopes to pursue policies that will remould Sweden's political landscape and end the decades-long domination of the Social Democrats.
The few centre-right governments have been short-lived and were generally associated with economic crises.
Mr Reinfeldt aims to cut total unemployment, which he put as high as 20 per cent, by reducing taxes to make it more profitable to work, and lowering benefits to encourage the search for a job.
Commentators warned the new prime minister had to live up to high expectations, with eyes already on the next election. "Their chance of being re-elected in 2010 is totally dependent on how the job market develops," wrote a commentator in the liberal newspaper Dagens Nyheter. "Fredrik Reinfeldt's victory is impressive, but a challenge awaits that is at least as tough."
"Jobs, jobs, jobs," was the first priority, said the biggest-selling daily Aftonbladet, saying progress had to be clear in two years at most. "There is an election again in 1,459 days. Until then anything can happen," it wrote.
Mr Reinfeldt's win overshadowed another development: the rise of far-right party the Swedish Democrats, mainly in the south. The final count, a recount of election day votes, plus late postal votes and ballots from abroad, showed the party at 2.8 per cent, double its 2002 showing of 1.4 per cent, but below the 4 per cent needed to enter parliament.
Immigration was not a big issue in the election and modern Sweden generally sees itself as a tolerant society.
For the Social Democrats, the hunt has begun for a successor to former prime minister Göran Persson as party leader.
There are calls for the party that created Sweden's welfare state to appoint its first woman leader. Aftonbladet said many people wanted European Commissioner Margot Wallström.