A plain guide to how Sweden is actually governed, and what the 13 September vote can and cannot change. A colleague in Seoul asked me last week who Sweden's president is. I started to answer, stopped, and realised the honest reply took about four minutes: there is no president, there is a king who does not govern, there is a prime minister nobody votes for directly, and there is a parliament that can install a government without a majority ever voting in favour of it. He laughed and said that sounded broken. It is not broken. But it does explain why the result this Sunday will be harder to read than the polling numbers suggest, and why the winner may not be the party with the most votes. HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS Sweden is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. There is no presidency and no directly elected head of government. Head of state: King Carl XVI Gustaf . Since the 1974 Instrument of Government he has no political power and no role in appointing a government. Hi...