Ernst Trygger - Prime Minister

Prime Minister

When the cabinet of Hjalmar Branting, the world's first social democrat to be voted into power, resigned in 1923, king Gustav authorized (one of few remainders of real power still in royal hands) Trygger to head the government. Trygger had had a chance to reach this position already in 1920, but this was prevented by Lindman, who rather saw an unpolitical government before an upcoming election.

The major issue during Trygger's time in office was the question of defence and alignment. Leader of a minority cabinet, Trygger tried to reach a solution with broad acceptance through "intelligent adjustment" ("intelligent anpassning"). This failed due to lack of support from both the social democrats and the liberals. In the 1924 elections the support of the Right increased, nonetheless it was Branting who got to form cabinet, after even bigger electional gains for the social democrats. Another reason in Branting's favour was the likelihood of a solution to the defence issue supported by both liberals and social democrats.

The confidence in Trygger's cabinet in international issues had also been somewhat damaged after an incident in the autumn of 1923. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carl Hederstierna, had openly during a speech before leading Swedish journalists declared his support for an alliance with Finland in the event of any Russo-Finnish dispute. This damaged Russo-Swedish relations at a sensitive point when trade negotiations were about to be opened and fundamentally opposed the tacit principle of Swedish non-alignment. Hederstierna was swiftly replaced with count Erik Marks von Würtemberg.