According to Hatt, there is no single incident behind her decision to step down.
"Constantly feeling like I have to monitor my surroundings and looking over my shoulder, never feeling completely safe, not even at home... I am affected much more deeply by this than I thought I would be."
Former Centre Party leader Annie Lööf was the intended target of a suspected terror attack at Sweden's Almedalen political festival in 2022, which Lööf said was partly behind her own decision to step down.
Hatt, who was brought to tears during the press conference, said that the hatred and threats she has experienced since becoming party leader were worse than she could imagine, and that they "get under your skin".
She added that she meets hatred and threats "every day, all hours of the day".
"I need to be honest and say that I never would have been able to understand in advance the full meaning of what would be directed at me, or how it would affect me."
She said that it was the most difficult decision she has had to make in her professional career.
Hatt has been a politician for decades, taking on her first role for the Centre Party in 1991. Her return to the party as leader followed a return to politics after more than ten years, and she said in the press conference announcing her decision to step down as leader that the political climate has worsened since the last time she was politically active.
She added that society has become much more polarised in the past ten years.
"If I was going to send any sort of message going forward," she said, "to my colleagues in other parties, it would be to reflect on that. I don't think it's good for Sweden. The strong polarisation we have seen. I hope that politicians from different parties can work harder in the future to look for and find what brings them together, build consensus and agreement, increase trust in society."
She will formally remain in her position as leader until the party's next meeting in Karlstad in November.
A new Centre Party leader might not seem like a big deal, but depending on the results of the next election in September 2026, the party may play a crucial role in choosing the next prime minister.
Sweden's two political blocs have a roughly even split of votes. The current ruling block has 176 seats ‒ the government (Moderates, Liberals and Christian Democrats), with the support of the Sweden Democrats and one former Sweden Democrat who is now independent. The opposition ‒ the Social Democrats, Left Party, Green Party and Centre Party, plus one former Social Democrat independent and two former Left Party independents ‒ has 173 seats.
If the new leader of the Centre Party were to ally with the right-wing bloc and the Sweden Democrats, it would represent a shift to the right for Swedish politics and effectively make it impossible for the Social Democrats to form a government, unless there were major shifts in support for the other left-wing parties.
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