Swedish prime minister accuses left-wing party of Islamist infiltration

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson alleged in a televised debate Sunday that the Left Party has been “infiltrated by Islamists from the Middle East,” citing a pattern of antisemitism and support for terrorist acts among its candidates, Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported.

The claims came during Agenda, SVT’s political program, where Kristersson faced Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar following an investigative series by Expressen that found roughly 20 Left Party candidates in local elections had praised terrorist attacks, denied the Holocaust, or spread antisemitic rhetoric. Twenty-four candidates have since been removed from party lists.

Kristersson described the findings as part of a broader trend, stating the Left Party had “used this to win votes in certain groups” and pointing to reported agreements between the party’s Helsingborg branch and organizations linked to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to place “brothers and sisters” from the Palestinian movement on its municipal ballot.

Dadgostar dismissed the allegations as “absurd,” noting the 24 individuals represented a fraction of the party’s 4,000 volunteer activists. She emphasized that the Left Party had acted immediately to remove the candidates and was tightening its vetting procedures at the local level.

“Desperate from a prime minister who’s about to lose his job in three months,” Dadgostar countered, referring to the upcoming September election.

The exchange follows Expressen’s report that several PLO-affiliated groups had negotiated with the Left Party in Helsingborg to secure spots on its electoral list for members of the Palestinian solidarity movement.