Sweden’s prime minister resigns just hours after taking office

Magdalena Andersson’s reign as Sweden’s first female prime minister lasted just seven hours as the Scandinavian country plunged into political chaos on an extraordinary day of drama in Stockholm.

Andersson resigned as prime minister on Wednesday, only hours after gaining sufficient backing from parliament to take the role, when her new partners from the Green party quit the coalition and collapsed her centre-left government.

The Greens left in protest after parliament refused to back the government’s spending plans and instead adopted a budget drafted by the opposition, nationalist Sweden Democrats and two mainstream centre-right parties.

Handing in her resignation just hours after saying how ''moved'' she was to become leader and inspire girls across Sweden, Andersson said: ''This maybe is not the best image of Swedish politics.''

In a day of high political drama, Andersson first became Sweden’s new leader despite losing the vote, as a majority could not be mustered to stop her taking office by one vote.

Then her own budget, drafted when she was finance minister, was rejected by parliament, meaning she would have to govern with opposition spending plans until national elections next September — although a revised budget could be presented in the spring.

That led the Greens to resign from the government due to the opposition budget reversing several environmental measures. They said they would back Andersson as prime minister in the new vote, but it is unclear how other parties would react.

Andersson said she would try to govern with a one-party minority government of her Social Democrat party, noting that earlier in the day she had sufficient support to become prime minister.