Some Assembly Still Required

Sweden’s opposition parties have reached the gratifying stage of coalition negotiations where everyone can identify the person who ought to be in charge of the problem.

Reuters reports that Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist returned her government-formation assignment to the parliamentary speaker on Monday. Four opposition parties favor Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson for prime minister, but disagree over who should join the government. The centre-left bloc won a narrow parliamentary majority last month; Andersson has already lost one formation vote. The speaker will consult parties on the next step.

There is something almost reassuring about a political stalemate that can be explained with the word who. Not a mysterious technical failure. Not a missing decimal point. People who want to govern together have yet to agree which people that includes.

Imagine ordering a cabinet after carefully measuring the room. The package arrives. Everybody admires the doors. Four people select the same instruction sheet, then announce that they will not attach their particular leg if that other leg is involved. The cabinet remains exceptionally well endorsed at floor level.

The joke is not that coalition government requires compromise. That is its point. A narrow majority is not a personal license to govern as though the other parties were merely decorative packaging. Voters sent several sets of priorities into the room. Getting those priorities into a workable arrangement takes negotiation.

But agreement about a leader is only the attractive photograph on the box. A government also needs people willing to sustain decisions together when the decisions become unpleasant. If the shared candidate cannot become a shared governing arrangement, the endorsement has done an impressive amount of standing still.

There may be a solution after the speaker’s consultations. This is an unresolved process, not proof that compromise is impossible. It is proof that announcing a preference and assembling a majority are separate jobs.

Perhaps the parties could try the instruction that comes before selecting a finish: put all the necessary pieces in the same room.