Low-profile Left Party candidate’s victory raises questions over party oversight

An investigation into possible election fraud in Borlänge has stirred debate, while the surprise entry of Mohamed Abdukardir Ali into Sweden’s parliament has also prompted questions about how the Left Party selected its candidates, SVT reports.

Ali, 30, had been a party member for about a year when he was placed ninth on the Left Party’s parliamentary list in Dalarna.

With 648 preference votes, he displaced the party’s local leading candidate, climate policy spokesperson Kajsa Fredholm. The result appeared to catch the party off guard.

“I actually don’t really know who he is,” Matts Hammarqvist, group leader of the Left Party in Borlänge, told Expressen.

Peter Wennblad, an editorial writer at Svenska Dagbladet, described the victory as worrying during SVT’s current affairs programme Aktuellt. He called the Left Party’s handling of the candidacy a “security risk”.

“It is a fairly basic requirement for parties to know who their candidates are at every level, and especially their parliamentary candidates. We are talking about Sweden’s highest political body,” Wennblad said.

Leonidas Aretakis, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Flamman, also said the events were remarkable.

“I agree that this is not how it should be done. I am struck by how few preference votes he received. It was just over 650 people,” Aretakis said.

He said the result could partly be explained by the Left Party’s historic lack of personal-vote campaigns.

“There are many good things about that, but the party has very long lists and volunteer local politicians who are expected to handle this. They do not have the firm control that larger and more established parties in parliament have had,” Aretakis said.

The Left Party had not commented on the election fraud complaint by Monday evening. SVT currently has no information indicating that Ali is suspected of any crime.