What’s happened?
Anna-Karin Hatt has announced she will step down as party leader after just six months on the job, due to hatred and threats she has received since taking over the role. She added that 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," she told a press conference announcing her decision.
This makes her the second Centre Party leader in three years to step down due to threats and hate directed their way.
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."
How have her political colleagues reacted?
Hatt’s decision to step down was unexpected, not least because she only took over as party leader from Muharrem Demirok around six months ago.
Colleagues from all over the political spectrum have expressed their support for Hatt, who called on politicians to combat the polarisation she believes is partly behind the increase in hatred directed at her and other politicians.
"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, and increase trust in society."
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.
Why is a new Centre leader politically important?
Aside from the obvious fact that Hatt’s resignation represents how harsh the climate has become for politicians in Sweden, and the potential consequences her announcement to resign could have on the general political atmosphere, the appointment of a new Centre Party leader could affect who becomes prime minister in 2026.
The Centre Party only received around 6.7 percent of the vote in the 2022 election, or 24 of Sweden’s 349 seats in parliament, making it Sweden’s fifth-largest party behind the Left Party, the Moderates, the Sweden Democrats and the Social Democrats.
However, Sweden's two political blocs have a roughly even split of votes, which means every seat is crucial.
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.
Is the Centre Party likely to ally with the right?
This is a party whose members largely view themselves as centre-right, at home in a coalition with the Moderates, but whose voters see themselves not as natural allies of the Social Democrats, but at least as implacably opposed to the far-right Sweden Democrats.
The party was previously successful in ruling the country between 2006 and 2014 as part of The Alliance (Alliansen), alongside the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals.
Another Alliansen government would probably be considered ideal for the Centre Party, but the party has more or less allied with the Social Democrats since 2019, when it supported the then-Social Democrat government as part of the January Agreement, along with the Liberals and the Green Party.
The party has historically had a hard line against working with the Sweden Democrats, which is one of the reasons it has found itself in the left-wing block in the first place. It also dislikes the Left Party, and has said in the past that it will not support a government with Left Party ministers.
What would it mean if the Centre Party joined the right-wing block next election?
Although 6.7 percent of the vote may not seem like much, it could easily be enough to sway the balance between the two blocks one way or another.
The Centre Party would have to decide if they were more ideologically opposed to working with the Left Party than the Sweden Democrats.
Joining the Sweden Democrats would certainly be possible for the party in theory – especially under a new leader – but it’s a big ‘if’.
Opposition to the Sweden Democrats was arguably the main reason to vote for the Centre party in the 2022 election. The risk for any new leader announcing an intention to switch sides is that many of the party's current voters would instead vote Social Democrat, or perhaps for the Green Party, and the party could lose so many votes that it drops below the 4 percent parliamentary threshold and loses all of its seats.
Moreover, crossing the divide would put Centre in direct competition with the Liberal Party for the same centrist voters. In the 2022 election, the Liberal Party was already reliant on tactical votes from Moderate Party supporters to nudge it over the 4 percent threshold. If Centre switched sides, it's far from certain that both parties would clear it in 2026.
If the Centre Party chose to side with the centre-right government instead of the Social Democrats, that would give the current government a stronger mandate and greater flexibility.
On the other hand, if the Social Democrats lost support of the Centre Party, it could make it much harder for them to form a government, unless support for the other left-wing parties increases in 2026.
Who could take over as leader?
It's too early to say, although we can look at which names were in the running when Hatt and Demirok became leader.
Those potential names include Emma Wiesner, the Centre Party's top MEP; Elisabeth Thand Ringkvist, the party's business policy spokesperson, and Martin Ådahl, the party's finance spokesperson. Ulrika Liljeberg, the party's justice spokesperson also suggested back in 2023 when Demirok stepped down that she could be interested.
Within the party, Emil Källstrom was named as a dream candidate both in 2023 and 2025, although he was clear both times that his answer was a definite 'no'.
It's not known whether any of them are still interested or if they'll be put off by Hatt's decision to step down due to the threats and hatred she's received.
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