Magdalena Andersson, who on Wednesday quit just hours after becoming the first woman elected Sweden’s prime minister, is a “bulldozer” who faces a tough battle fending off unprecedented challenges in next year’s general election.
The 54-year-old member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, with straight blond hair and a no-nonsense attitude, describes herself as a “nice, hard-working woman” who likes to be in charge.
In political circles, she has built a reputation for being direct and blunt, a quality that rubs some the wrong way in a country where consensus is the law of the land.
Photo: AFP
A recent TV profile of her was titled “The Bulldozer.”
“People even say they are scared of her, which is kind of funny, these elite political scientists or professors of economics saying they are afraid of her,” said Anders Lindberg, political editor at daily Aftonbladet, which describes itself as independent social democratic.
Considered extremely competent during seven years as minister of finance, Andersson is known for her slogan “Sweden can do better.”
She made a name for herself in Brussels for defending fiscal restraint when the Scandinavian country joined Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands as the “frugal four” who counseled a more restrained European COVID-19 recovery plan.
“She has a little bit of an [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel way of arguing. It’s not completely clear what she wants to say all the time, but [she] ends up winning the argument because no-one else can really answer because she masters all the details,” Lindberg said.
Born in the university town of Uppsala, she is the only daughter of a university professor and a teacher.
She first made a name for herself in the water, twice winning gold at the Swedish national junior championships.
Alongside her studies at the Stockholm School of Economics — and a spell at Harvard — she immersed herself in the Social Democratic party, having joined its youth league at age 16.
In 1996, she became an aide to then-Swedish prime minister Goran Persson.
“I think she’s very keen now to present herself as being someone who has done the groundwork... But of course she is a from an academic elite,” University of Gothenburg professor of political science Jonas Hinnfors said.
While she identifies with the party’s left-wing faction, she has taken a “pragmatic” approach to its shift toward the center in the past few years, Hinnfors said.
Having waited for so long to have a female prime minister, Sweden experienced its first in the post for only hours.
Andersson quit after her budget was rejected and the Greens walked away from her coalition.
However, she has said she would like to return, so Swedes might yet get to see how she could lead the country.
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