The Sweden Democrats went too far against former C leader Annie Lööf.
That’s what party leader Mattias Karlsson thinks.
– It is not a reasonable way to talk about political opponents, he says in SVT’s 30 minutes.
At the same time, he calls the Liberals’ latest announcement a “pretend alternative”.
Anna-Karin Hatt’s decision to resign as leader of the Center Party due to hatred, threats and today’s social climate is “surprising” and “sad”.
That’s what SD leader Mattias Karlsson, member of the Riksdag and chairman of the Riksdag’s foreign affairs committee, says in SVT’s 30 minutes:
– No politician should have to feel that way. That you cannot be active in the service of democracy because it becomes too difficult with threats and hatred. It is deplorable.
Rik’s harsh words against Annie Lööf
According to political scientist Sandra Håkansson, who researches threats and hatred against politicians at Uppsala University, the extent of threats and hatred has increased since the 2010s.
But Karlsson himself says that for him it was “much, much worse” twenty years ago.
At the same time, the SD has contributed to the harsh tone – not least towards the former Center leader Annie Lööf – and, according to Karlsson, has the same responsibility as “everyone who has a significant place in the public debate”.
When SVT brings up examples from the former SD media channel Riks, about how they described the former C leader as “sharia-Annie” and as a person with a “sociopath look”, Mattias Karlsson replies:
“Would have done differently”
– I have never been involved in the editorial decisions at Riks and today it is an independent channel, but there have been harsh voices from all sides. Annie Lööf described us as suspected Russian collaborators and traitors and fascists and racists repeatedly, so there was an escalation that was probably rooted in the fact that there were very strong differences of opinion.
The presenter Anders Holmberg then asks if the party went too far.
– I don’t think it’s a reasonable way to talk about political opponents, I don’t think so, says the SD leader.
He adds:
– If I had had any influence over the editorial decisions that day at Riks, I would have thought that we would have done differently.
Mattias Karlsson about the L notice
In the program, Mattias Karlsson also responds to the Liberals’ and party leader Simona Mohamsson’s latest announcement that they do not intend to accept any ministerial positions for SD in a future government.
He believes that it is not reasonable that the party that looks like it will be disturbed in the right-wing bloc after the next election – that is, SD – should again “be kept out”, and that “it should be decided by the smallest party”.
– A bourgeois government without the Sweden Democrats, which cooperates with the Sweden Democrats, is an alternative that does not exist. It is a pretend option. The alternative that is on the table is a right-wing government in which the Sweden Democrats are included, in which the Liberals can also be included, or we get a left-wing government, says the SD leader for 30 minutes.
