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Of: TT
Published:
February 1 | Photo: Fredrik Sandberg / TT
When the scandal became a personal impulse that included my children, the dignity of all limits was surpassed, writes Mona Sahlin in her new book.
It has been silent for four years. I only touched on the subject briefly.
When Mona Sahlin now opens in book form about the scandal surrounding the certificate and bodyguard, she does so with overwhelming darkness in her luggage and a sadness that no one will remember her 40-year political feat.
It was 04:06 when the email reached the inbox. She had to read it several times to assimilate the content. To, as she describes it, understand how low we all had fallen.
“Let me ask you: Are you dear? You know that love forgives everything and if it is as the rumors say, I see no reason not to say it.”
The question came from Aftonbladet. It was May 6, 2016.
– It was so terrible, because I’ve been with him long enough to realize that when a question like that comes from a political reporter in the big evening newspaper, then more people have that question. So this is what will be talked about. It was … Yes, I died inside. And I also knew how difficult it would be for him, for his wife and children, and for my husband and my children. Then something ran out of me that night.
Resigned immediately
More than four years have passed since Mona Sahlin stepped down as the National Coordinator against Violent Extremism. Meanwhile, she has been trying to process what four decades in the public eye are doing to a human being. The book “Power – Loose” is a kind of memoir about her political time from 2011, when she resigned as leader of the party of Social Democrats until today. It is a job description to make ignorant municipalities understand how to deal with young people who want to travel to Syria and fight for IS. And about a review that had her physically locked up for weeks.
In the book, the question is asked: am I still a social democrat? We will return to the answer.
It was on May 4, 2016 that Expressen revealed that Mona Sahlin wrote a false certificate on the authority’s letterhead to her then-bodyguard because she could buy an exclusive home in Saltsjöbaden. She stated that the bodyguard earned a total of SEK 120,000 per month: SEK 60,000 from government offices and SEK 60,000 paid by herself. But the salary of the government offices was in fact 42,000 SEK.
– What differed from reality was 20,000, says Mona Sahlin now in hindsight.
“Careless and wrong”
She describes that at that time she was negotiating with the Ministry of Culture about the bodyguard’s salary because they had assigned him additional tasks. She felt prepared as a national coordinator and had gotten a new job in New York, which she does not want to enter so that the organization does not “flood itself with questions”, so she paid the bodyguard out of her own pocket for personal security during travel arrangements.
– He did not want me to spend time with the salary of the ministry.
The idea was for him to go to the United States. Säpo was no longer responsible for her safety, but the Stockholm police were responsible for her.
– But I didn’t feel safe, so they hired him. Straight up and down. He was a good person who protected me and I felt safe with him.
When he wrote the certificate, the salary negotiation was not over; despite that, he wrote the sum of 60,000 crowns. It was “sloppy and unkempt” but “without bad intentions”.
– It was incredible both careless and mistaken and overwhelmed by me that he “resolved to write that sum.” But it is also the case that if I write a signature on an official paper, I know it will come out. It’s not like I’m deliberately writing something fake. So that’s just an explanation, but it’s not correct to do it.
She admitted to the crime and received a court order for perjury in three cases. Sahlin claims that she was not misled and that during her two years she wrote several other employer certificates for employees in the coordinator’s years of office that contained correct information.
Always comes back
Mona Sahlin has been through many scandals, and perhaps most importantly, she is associated with the triangular piece of chocolate. But she has always surfaced and returned to politics, answered journalists’ questions and spoke. Not this time.
– I’m just here, she says and shows with her palm a waterline that goes just below her nose.
She describes how a legitimate and reasonable review became an impulse against her as a person. It was when a journalist asked why her son wrote to the bodyguard on social media and she related that the articles about the bodyguard hinted at a love story that fell apart. Love was never talked about.
– He was a friend but in the first place he was a professional bodyguard for me.
Depression caused him to physically lock himself in the apartment and look through the keyhole to avoid reporters, and when he ventured out, a brochure with “Sahlin’s Lies” could make him quickly put on his sunglasses. and come home.
– After other discussions and scandals that I have been through, I have always felt that I want to be in politics. “I have to do it, I have to move on, I have to regain confidence so that I can continue with what I have really loved from the beginning: being a politician.” But that was not the case. Finished. And I don’t have the feeling of regaining any kind of confidence, but that was the point of my political life.
Mona Sahlin sometimes feels like she’s stuck in her mind and has a hard time speaking. In the end, she received professional help and still goes there regularly.
Gone from the party
After the certificate scandal, the former leader of the S Party fears that the image of the public’s memory is the black of the headlines. He points out that he was also the first female president of the SSU club, the SSU district, party secretary, and party leader.
– Then it is very good that he did not become the first prime minister.
In the June book and summer talk, he asks: Am I still a Social Democrat? As for values, yes, but with sadness he sees how the political debate has moved and now he has left the party.
– I have made the assessment that you are a member when you are involved and you change and think and I have been in that position for 40 years. Now it is the turn of the others.
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