Swedish Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson is favourite to become Sweden’s first female prime minister.
However, major challenges face the current minister if she is to keep the top job longer than a few months.
Policy headaches include halting entrenched gang violence and retooling the economy to combat climate change.
“It is a challenging situation,” Nick Aylott, associate professor of political science at Sodertorn University, said. “But not hopeless.”
The first hurdle for the 54-year-old economist and Swedish Finance Minister will be to get the nod from parliament.
Andersson will need support from the former communist Left Party and the Centre Party – member of a right-leaning government in 2006-14.
Those parties will also have to back the autumn budget in December.
Andersson has outlined generous spending plans and income tax cuts for 2022.
But pleasing everyone is really difficult.
“I think we are going to see a very different style of leadership,” said Annika Strandhall, Social Security Minister in Lofven’s government until 2019.
“She knows how to compromise… but she is going to be much more direct.”
Lofven, known as skilled negotiator and dealmaker, only just managed to keep his fractious parliamentary backers in line. Andersson, an elite swimmer in her youth, is widely seen as less conciliatory.
“If she thinks she’s right and someone else is wrong she is clear about it,” the Centre Party’s former economic spokesman Emil Kallstrom told Swedish television.
