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A30 world news
Diahuebs 25 November 2021
Sweden’s first female prime minister quits hours later
cial Democratic party, decid- spokesperson as the party
ed it was best to step down Andersson said that “a coali- chose to resign from the gov-
from the post more than tion government should re- ernment.
seven hours after she made sign if a party chooses to leave
history by becoming the first the government. Despite the The other Green Party
woman to lead the country. fact that the parliamentary spokesperson Per Bolund
situation is unchanged, it said “that is something we
”For me, it is about respect, needs to be tried again.” deeply regret.”
but I also do not want to lead
a government where there Even though the Green Par- Earlier in the day, Andersson
may be grounds to question ty pulled its support for her said she could “govern the
its legitimacy,” Andersson government, it said it is pre- country with the opposition’s
told a news conference. pared to stand behind An- budget.”
dersson in a new vote to tap
Andersson, who was finance a prime minister. The approved budget was
minister before briefly be- based on the government’s
coming prime minister, in- But the Greens said it was in own proposal but of the 74
formed parliamentary Speak- the best interests of the party billion kronor ($8.2 billion)
(AP) — Hours after be- get proposal was rejected in er Andreas Norlen that she to pull support for her after that the government wanted
ing tapped as Sweden’s favor of one presented by the is still interested in leading a the budget defeat in parlia- to spend on reforms, just
first female prime minis- opposition that includes the Social Democratic one-party ment. over 20 billion kronor ($2.2
ter, Magdalena Andersson right-wing populist Sweden government. billion) will be redistributed
resigned Wednesday after Democrats. Sweden’s third- “We have a united party be- next year, Swedish broadcast-
suffering a budget defeat largest party is rooted in a Norlen, the speaker of Swe- hind us saying we can not sit er SVT said. The approved
in parliament and her co- neo-Nazi movement. The den’s 349-seat parliament, in government that imple- budget aims at reducing tax-
alition partner the Greens vote was 154-143 in favor of said he will contact Sweden’s ments a policy (the Swe- es, increased salaries for po-
left the two-party minor- the opposition’s budget pro- eight party leaders ”to discuss den Democrats) negotiated. lice officers and more money
ity government. posal. the situation.” On Thursday, We must look our voters in to different sectors of Swe-
he will announce the road the eye and feel pride,” said den’s judiciary system.
The government’s own bud- Andersson, leader of the So- ahead. Marta Stenevi, Green Party
Ethiopian leader called war ‘epitome of hell.’ Now he’s back
(AP) — Ethiopian Prime Minis- spokesman said. state of emergency, want to see Abiy closer to Ethiopia’s capital, with the
ter Abiy Ahmed is already a veter- gone, by force if needed. Tigray fighters newly on the move
an at surprising the world in just The prime minister is no stranger to toward Debre Sina, less than a day’s
three years in power. He’s done war. As a teenager, he joined fight- The deeply religious prime minis- drive from Addis Ababa. The fighters
it again this week by announcing ers who eventually overthrew the ter came to office preaching national are also trying to cut off a crucial sup-
that, after a year of waging war, he country’s Marxist Derg regime, then unity, and representing it as well. The ply line from neighboring Djibouti, a
will lead it from the battlefront. signed up for the new government’s son of a Christian and Muslim and further threat to Africa’s diplomatic
military. He took part in Ethiopia’s of mixed ethnic heritage, he shocked capital.
Abiy’s rule has been short in the vast war against Eritrea as a radio opera- Africa’s second-most populous coun-
sweep of Ethiopian history, but he has tor, serving at the border in Tigray, try by apologizing for the past gov- Accordingly, a growing number of
spent almost all his life preparing for and later became a lieutenant colonel. ernment’s abuses. Tigrayans have re- countries have told their citizens to
it. Told as a child by his mother that called cheering him on, at first. leave immediately. And the U.S. has
she believed he would lead Ethio- Now roles are dramatically reversed. told Americans again and again that
pia, he now speaks of martyrdom, if The Tigray fighters Abiy once called “War is the epitome of hell for all in- no Afghanistan-style evacuation is
needed, to hold the nation together. friends are now the enemy, and the volved,” Abiy said in his Nobel ad- coming for them.
Eritrean soldiers he once fought have dress in those earlier days.
Abiy rocketed to office out of seem- been allowed to join the war as Ethio- The war, Abiy said in announcing his
ingly nowhere in 2018 with vows of pia’s allies. Now the hardened positions by the move to the battlefront, “is a struggle
dramatic reforms to a long-repressive warring sides, each believing they can that determines whether we exist or
national government. He also an- Years after his career turned from the be victorious, have tested the efforts not. But we will definitely win. It is
nounced he would make peace with military to politics, Abiy faces a bat- of mediators from the United States unthinkable for Ethiopia to be de-
neighboring Eritrea after years of bit- tlefield challenge he has never faced and African Union. Abiy believes the feated. We are in a time when it re-
ter conflict. For that, the youthful before: Commanding an army. Tigray forces will be pushed back into quires to lead the country by paying
prime minister was awarded the No- their region, U.S. envoy Jeffrey Felt- the sacrifice.”
bel Peace Prize. But the prime minister is known as a man said this week. But he added, “I
man with a sense of destiny. question that confidence.” He called on fellow Ethiopians to
Then, less than a year later, Abiy an- The war front, Feltman said, is edging meet him there.
nounced his military was at war with He “clearly has a personal sense of his
the leaders of Ethiopia’s northern Ti- right to be ruler of Ethiopia and take
gray region, who had dominated the on the responsibility it entails,” said
previous national government but Christopher Clapham, a retired pro-
quickly found friction with the prime fessor associated with the University
minister. Political differences turned of Cambridge.
to gunfire in November 2020.
Overseeing the fracture of Ethiopia,
Tens of thousands of people have been a nation with a 3,000-year history,
killed since then, and close to half a would be a “massive blow” to Abiy,
million people inside Tigray now face Clapham said, and by heading to the
the world’s worst famine crisis in a battlefront he is following the tradi-
decade, one that the United States tion of emperors.
has called “entirely man-made.”
But emperors can fall, and govern-
The 45-year-old Abiy has now ments, too. The rival Tigray forces,
plunged into the fight, arriving at the whose advance on Ethiopia’s capital
battlefront on Tuesday, a government in recent weeks prompted a national