Centre Party Leader Crushed in PM Vote - 324 Say No

STOCKHOLM - Sweden's parliament has rejected a second candidate for prime minister in less than three weeks. Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist got the votes of her own 25 MPs. Everyone else - 324 members - voted no.

The baton now passes to Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson. Speaker Andreas Norlén has two attempts left before Swedes can be forced into a snap election.

Kristersson has been tasked with exploring whether he can form a government that parliament will at least tolerate. He has one week, until Tuesday 10 November. After that, the Speaker can nominate him or someone else for prime minister.

Tuesday's vote concerned a five-party government of the Centre Party, the Social Democrats, the Christian Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals, with Thand Ringqvist at the head.

But every single MP from the Social Democrats, the Christian Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals voted against it - as did the Moderates, the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party. Nobody abstained and nobody was absent, according to the parliament's official record.

READ MORE: Speaker Puts Centre Party Leader Up for PM - Expected to Fail

A candidate falls if at least 175 of parliament's 349 members vote no. This was the second vote since the September election. On 15 October, Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson was voted down 248 to 99.

The red line stays

After the vote, Thand Ringqvist told Swedish public television that the attempt was a way to move things forward, since she had been sounding out a centrist government.

She also made clear that her party's red line against the Sweden Democrats - Sweden's second-largest party - remains in place.

"We were clear: no ministers and no cooperation with a government that cooperates with the Sweden Democrats."

Kristersson is next

The Speaker has said that if Kristersson's mission fails, he will look into whether a red-green government is possible before calling the next vote. Until then, Kristersson leads a caretaker government of the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals.

At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Kristersson said he had accepted the task. He plans to keep talking to the parties, and says those talks will happen in relative quiet during the first week.

"Every solution is unlikely, but the most unlikely of all is that Sweden never gets a government again," Kristersson said.

The Speaker can put forward four candidates for prime minister. If all four are voted down, a snap election must be held within three months.