Sweden’s outgoing PM Ulf Kristersson has one week to form a government, seven weeks after an election that left the left and right blocs deadlocked.

STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s outgoing conservative prime minister Ulf Kristersson was on Tuesday tasked with trying to form a new government amid a political deadlock more than seven weeks after the country’s general election.

Parliament speaker Andreas Norlen gave Kristersson, who has headed a caretaker government since losing the September 13 election, one week to try to build a majority administration.

In the election, the centre-left opposition bloc won 176 seats, versus 173 for Kristersson’s right-wing bloc, which includes the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats.