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| - Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has weathered the decline of social democracy in Europe, the rise of the far right and even the Covid-19 pandemic, but he was finally forced to resign on Monday, a week after he lost a historic vote of no confidence in Sweden's parliament. Lofven, a 63-year-old former welder and union leader with the square build and nose of a boxer, guided the Swedish left back to power in 2014, and then hung on by moving his party closer to the centre right after the 2018 elections. A master of consensus for some, a dull and visionless party man for others, he finally fell out with the Left Party propping up his administration. He is the first Swedish government leader to be defeated by a no confidence vote after 11 unsuccessful attempts in modern political history. Forced to choose between resigning or calling a snap election with little more than a year left to the scheduled general election in September 2022 -- which will go ahead regardless -- Lofven picked the first option. "It's the most difficult political decision I have made," he told a press conference Monday. It may however be too early to count out the man who emerged victorious from elections deemed lost in 2018, as his negotiating skills could yet forge a new majority. Born in Stockholm in 1957, poverty forced Lofven's single mother to give him up when he was 10 months old to a foster family in Solleftea, 500 kilometres (310 miles) north of the capital, where his foster father was a factory worker. He became a welder and spent 15 years in a defence factory, and then went on to become head of the metal workers' union from 2006 to 2012. While the traditional left struggled in Europe -- only six social democratic or socialist heads of government remain in the 27-member EU -- Lofven managed to stay on top, even though he confused supporters by moving to the right, earning a reputation as a "right-wing socialist". "Stefan Lofven could go down in history for his inventiveness and willingness for sacrifices to keep the Social Democrats in power," political commentator Ewa Stenberg wrote in newspaper Dagens Nyheter after his historic defeat. She added that he now faced his greatest test yet, requiring "the political equivalent of what escape artist Harry Houdini did over a hundred years ago," with several seemingly impossible political knots to untie. While controversial, his decision to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic with mainly non-coercive measures was not what weakened Lofven's position. In fact, the Swedish strategy promoted by state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell boosted his ratings in opinion polls, even as the death toll rose to over 14,000 in the country of 10.3 million people -- a rate far higher than those of its Nordic neighbours. Sweden's political crisis erupted in mid-June when the Left Party, which has propped up the government in parliament, said it was ready to support a motion of no confidence against the prime minister, even if it meant voting alongside the right-wing parties and the far-right Sweden Democrats. Its about-face was down to a preliminary plan to reform rent controls, potentially freeing landlords to set rents for new apartments. On the left, the proposal is considered at odds with the Swedish social model and a threat to tenants' rights. Lofven had in the past weathered repeated empty threats from the Left Party, and felt bound by a deal on liberal market reforms signed with two centre-left parties, the Centre Party and the Liberals. The deal irked the Left Party and was also seen as a move to the right for the Social Democrats despite securing them power. And it reminded people of another perceived lurch to the right in November 2015, when the government abruptly closed the doors to most immigrants after Sweden had already taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees, notably from Syria. bur-map/jll/tgb
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