Sweden: Moderate Party Wants Snap Elections

Yahoo has the following:

The leader of Sweden’s largest opposition party, the Moderates, called for a snap election as he tries to oust the Social Democrat-led government that rules with support of his former allies.

. . . The Social Democrats lead Sweden in coalition with the Green Party, and with the support of two long-standing allies of Kristersson, the Center Party and the Liberal Party.

. . . In Sweden, snap elections can only be called by the sitting government. But Kristersson made clear that his party wants to try to topple the Social Democrats before the next vote is due to be held in 2022 . . . As part of that push, he has moved closer to a formal cooperation with the nationalist Sweden Democrats, to confront the fragile government. 



I am not sure about the statement that the Center Party and Liberal Party are supporting the Social Democrats government. My understanding is that they abstained from voting against the Social Democrats, which allowed a minority government to form.

Per Yahoo, only the sitting government can call snap elections. Why might the Moderates be pushing for it. I think the answer lies in the fact that the articles mentions that the Moderates are negotiating with the Sweden Democrats.

Back in December, I wrote this:

I was able to track down a Sifo poll result that came out at the same time. The polling results are slightly different with the Social Democrats at 24.4% and the Sweden Democrats at 23.0%. I'm breaking this down in the alliances that I learned about when blogging about the 2018 results with some notes as the two alliances hit some snags. Currently, the Social Democrats lead a minority government.

Centre-left bloc parties

Social Democrats: 88 (currently at 100 seats)
Left Party: 38 (28)
Green Party: 18 (16) 

Alliance parties

Moderates: 62 (70)
Center Party: 29 (31)
Christian Democrats: 29 (22)
Liberals: 0 (20)

Sweden Democrats: 85 (62)

If polling holds and Moderates, Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats formed an alliance, you'd end up with 176 votes. That would be one vote above the needed 175. I'm assuming that the Center Party and Liberals (which based on the new polling would actually not have any seats) would refuse to join such an alliance.