Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven has been met with criticism after suggesting the Swedish communists (VPK) had “stood up for democracy”, despite being friendly with various totalitarian regimes.
The Swedish Prime Minister made his statement during an interview with Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter while speaking on the recent move by the Liberal Party to consider working with the populist Sweden Democrats.
“I have never understood that VPK did not stand up for democracy,” Lofven said after being asked about the historical ties between the Social Democrats, who he leads, and the VPK.
The statement has been met with criticism from many Swedish politicians, such as Liberal Party member Arman Teimouri, who noted that, for example, the 1987 VPK conference had delegations from the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea, Swedish newspaper Expressen reports.
The VPK, formerly the Swedish Communist Party, has been known as the Left Party since 1990 after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and cooperated with Prime Minister Lofven until 2019.
Petter Bergner, a PhD history researcher of the history of the Left Party, noted that the VPK were not especially democratic, saying, “Many party representatives… were not what we would today describe as Democrats. It was not at all obvious to everyone that socialism that had been introduced should be possible to vote out.”
Populist Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson, meanwhile, responded to Lofven’s comments in an opinion article for newspaper Aftonbladet, saying the statement “not only bears witness to a particularly basic view of democracy, but it is also a mockery of all the tens of millions of people who have fallen victim to heinous acts in the name of communism.”
“Apologize to the victims of communism, Stefan Löfven. The limit of decency has been reached,” Akesson added.
The Swedish prime minister’s remarks on the VPK are just the latest of several peculiar statements he had made, which have included claiming a migrant going on a mass stabbing attack earlier in the month was not a migration issue.
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