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POLITICS

Lööf has ‘lost credibility’ over polygamy claims

Experts say that Centre Party leader Annie Lööf, who on Thursday attempted to quell internal party dissent about a number of controversial new proposals, had "lost credibility" over statements regarding her stance on polygamy.

Published: 10 January 2013 17:54 CET
Lööf has 'lost credibility' over polygamy claims

“She showed poor political acumen by not managing to foresee the storm the platform would create,” political scientist and social democrat Ulf Bjereld told the TT news agency.

Lööf was forced to cut short her holiday in Thailand on Wednesday in order to return to Sweden to deal with an ongoing crisis stemming from opposition to the Centre Party’s new platform, set to be presented at the party’s conference on February 5th.

After arriving in Sweden on Thursday, she held a telephone conference call with dozens of party members, and despite reiterating her desire to jettison proposals legalizing polygamy and inheritance rights, Lööf was unable to sway all of her disgruntled colleagues.

“It’s not enough,” Hans Lindqvist, Centre Party group leader from the Stockholm County Council, told the TT news agency of Lööf’s remarks.

“The sections about a smaller state must be removed and the programme must be rewritten from the ground up.”

Speaking with Sveriges Radio (SR) after the conference call, Lööf said she welcomed the ongoing debate about the party’s proposals.

“When I started as party leader, I said the Centre Party’s ideas should drive the debate in Sweden. I think it’s good that the debate has been so lively,” she said.

Lööf promised that she and the party executive board would put forward a revised proposal that is “purified of what’s in there now”, emphasizing the importance of classic Centre Party principals such as the environment, decentralization, and social responsibility.

“We’re going to listen to our inner Centre Party soul and correct some parts and add other things,” she told reporters.

Among the Lööf’s Centre Party critics is foreign policy spokeswoman Kerstin Lundgren who slammed the party platform in an opinion piece published in the Dagens Nyheter (DN) on Thursday as being infused with principals that would lead to a social Darwinist society.

Lööf also came under fire for claims she had never supported polygamy after it emerged she had come out in support of it in 2006 as vice chair of the Centre Party youth wing.

“I don’t think the state and laws should determine who and with whom my neighbours or I want to live,” she wrote in a blog post at the time, according to SR.

“If my neighbour wants to marry two men, I wouldn’t move or care. That’s his or her choice.”

Speaking with Sveriges Television (SVT) on Thursday, Lööf said she had expressed herself clumsily when claiming she had never supported polygamy, explaining the blog post “was written ages ago”.

Bjereld said Lööf’s standing as party leader has likely suffered, however.

“It’s especially unfortunate that Annie Lööf publicly denied having earlier been a supporter of polygamy…By twisting the truth, she strengthened the image that she is an unclear politician and her personal credibility has been undermined,” he told TT.

K-G Bergström, political commentator for the Expressen newspaper, said Lööf’s decision to cut her holiday short showed she “didn’t have things under control”.

TT/The Local/dl

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POLITICS

‘Very little debate’ on consequences of Sweden’s crime and migration clampdown

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast. 

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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