Toblerone affair

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Mona Sahlin (2010)

The Toblerone affair (occasionally also the Sahlin affair ) is a political scandal in Sweden that focused on the social democratic politician Mona Sahlin . In October 1995 it became known that Sahlin, then a candidate for the chairmanship of her party and deputy prime minister, had paid for various goods for personal use with a business credit card that was available to members of the government for official business. Although she was able to prove that she had always reimbursed all amounts, Sahlin was forced to resign from her offices due to public pressure against her.

affair

background

Mona Sahlin was involved in the Swedish Social Democratic Labor Party from an early age . She took on several functions in the party's youth association and in 1982 became the youngest member of the Reichstag in Swedish history . In February 1990, at the age of 32, she became Minister of Labor in Ingvar Carlsson's cabinet . She held this position until the Social Democrats were defeated in the Reichstag elections in autumn 1991 . She was the first woman to work as general secretary of the party. After the Social Democrats came back to power in 1994 , she joined the new government as Minister for Gender Equality and also served as Deputy Prime Minister. Many Social Democrats soon saw her as a possible successor to Ingvar Carlsson, who announced that he would give up the party leadership in spring 1996. This would have given Mona Sahlin a good chance of becoming Sweden's first female prime minister.

Course and disclosure

On September 19, 1995, Sahlin officially announced that he was running for party leadership. Almost three weeks later, on October 7, 1995, the journalist Leif Brännström published an article in the tabloid Expressen in which he stated that Sahlin pays for clothing for private use with a credit card from the Regeringskansliet ( ministries' office ; literally: government office) had that was intended for the handling of official matters. According to the article, Mona Sahlin stated that she had mixed up her credit cards because her private card looked very similar to the business Eurocard . A day later, she revised her statement and stated that she had considered shopping with the business credit card as an "advance on her wages" . Shortly thereafter, further newspaper articles appeared in quick succession, initially exclusively in the express , later also in other papers, some of which showed that Sahlin had made further private purchases with the service card using copied invoices and receipts. In addition, Sahlin was charged with having paid for private trips worth several thousand Swedish kronor with the service card.

The press inquiries gradually included Sahlin's activities prior to 1994. More details were presented to the public daily, including facts that had been known for many years. It was recalled that at the time of her appointment as Minister of Labor (February 1990) Sahlin had employed a childminder for whom no social security contributions had been paid. Other irregularities from the time she was in charge of the Ministry of Labor came to light, such as the debit on the service card for private matters at that time, for example for renting a car . According to research by the Swedish media, private expenses totaling 53,174 kroner [approx. 5700 euros] were processed via the service card. The newspapers also reported that Mona Sahlin failed to pay license fees in 1993 . She left several fines imposed on her for illegal parking unpaid, so that the competent law enforcement agency had to collect the money.

On October 16, 1995, Mona Sahlin called a press conference that was broadcast live on public television. In her speech, she emphasized that she had always repaid the amounts in question. At the same time, she pointed out the, in her opinion, unclear set of rules regarding the private use of service credit cards. She strongly opposed being a "dishonorable" person. After an analysis by rhetoric specialist Peter Cassirer, her speech also aimed to portray the mix of private and official business as trivial . In this context, the following sentences by Mona Sahlin became famous:

“I would like to comment on some of the statements. There are a couple of [credit card] statements from a tax-free shop and here a [further] statement for diapers, a Toblerone bar, cigarettes, even two Toblerone bars. If I had intended to do something illegal here, I'd have to be a bit of an idiot to give my employer such a receipt. "

These words gave the Mona Sahlin affair the name by which it is known to this day: Toblerone affair . At the press conference, the politician announced a " timeout " and shortly afterwards went on a holiday trip to Mauritius with her family for several weeks . Mona Sahlin was accompanied by an assistant and two bodyguards from the Swedish security police, whose stay in a luxury hotel was a burden to the state treasury. Sahlin was also criticized for this, for her “morality and her economic disposition” . On November 10, 1995, she resigned as Minister and Deputy Prime Minister; she gave up her candidacy for the chairmanship of the Social Democratic Labor Party . On April 15, 1996, she also resigned from her seat in the Reichstag. In autumn 1996 she went public with the book Med mina ord (With my words), in which she presented the affair from her perspective.

Legal processing

Just a few days after the first press releases, 42 mostly anonymous criminal charges against Mona Sahlin were received by the Stockholm police . On October 18, 1995, the competent law enforcement agency (Åklagarmyndigheten) initiated an investigation against Mona Sahlin on suspicion of breach of trust, abuse of power of disposal and fraud . On January 11, 1996 the investigation was closed. According to public prosecutor Jan Danielsson, it could not be proven that Mona Sahlin had committed a criminal offense, especially since the rules on the use of business credit cards were "unclear" .

The decision met with criticism both immediately after it was announced and in subsequent analyzes. The parallel case of an administrative employee, who had also borrowed a small amount of money from the state treasury in 1995 in order to be able to pay a private electricity bill, was remembered. She has been charged, convicted, and dismissed from civil service. Her offense had consisted of failing to distinguish between business and private interests - which, in the opinion of the critics, also applied to Mona Sahlin.

Reactions

Parties and population

Ingvar Carlsson (2010), Prime Minister 1986–1991 and 1994–1996

Right at the beginning of the affair, the Social Democratic Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson expressed his confidence in his cabinet member Mona Sahlin. Overall, however, the party friends of the Deputy Prime Minister held back with expressions of solidarity. Mona Sahlin later described the lack of support from within her own ranks as the greatest disappointment of the time. Within 24 hours she would have turned from a beacon of hope "into a burden and a problem" in the eyes of several Social Democrats ; she was literally "sorted out" . In political analyzes, the ideological development of Mona Sahlin in particular has been cited as the cause of this attitude. The former traditionalist, who had unconditionally advocated high taxes and the Swedish welfare state , came closer and closer to the positions of the pragmatists until the mid-1990s and also defended cuts in the public sector. This positioning did not meet with approval everywhere in the party.

The bourgeois opposition parties criticized Sahlin's behavior, but made no official demands for his resignation. In the general population, Mona Sahlin clearly lost support. A poll by the polling institute Sifo published in mid-October 1995 found that 66 percent of Swedes considered Mona Sahlin to be “unsuitable” as prime minister .

Press

The Toblerone affair was rated differently in the press . Most of the commentators were of the opinion that Mona Sahlin had damaged her reputation as a politician herself through "sloppiness" and incorrect behavior. A person who was preparing to become the leader of a large party and prime minister was expected to have an orderly financial situation and not to amalgamate private and official business. The social democrat would have to blame the loss of confidence that occurred to herself.

However, some observers criticized the hysterical circumstances surrounding the affair and pleaded for a calm assessment of the case. The writer and journalist Anders Ehnmark emphasized that Mona Sahlin was guilty of "missteps" and "negligence" in the credit card affair, but not criminal offenses - and that in relation to the mistakes committed, the drastic political consequences should be classified as "bizarre" . Other voices attributed the criticism of Sahlin to “malevolence” and even deliberate “ contempt for women” , but less to the understandable need for “qualified control of a woman in power” .

When it became clear at the beginning of 2007 that Mona Sahlin would become chairwoman of the Social Democratic Workers' Party at the second attempt , many newspapers reopened the Toblerone affair . In many places the tendency towards a Toblerone myth has now been recognized: Through her press conference in October 1995 and its reverberations, Sahlin managed to create the impression that she had been urged to resign from office mainly because of a chocolate bar. In view of the discrepancies that are worthy of criticism, such a reinterpretation represents a “manipulation of history” .

Discussion about the "principle of public access"

The Toblerone affair led to a discussion in Sweden about the so-called publicity principle , which is intended to enable the general public and the mass media to gain insight into the work of the state and its employees. The fact that files and personal data, such as those of the tax authorities and the public debt register, can be viewed was not fundamentally called into question, as this practice enables citizens to control the authorities.

However, media critics criticized the fact that in the case of the Sahlin affair, free access to sensitive data had been abused in some cases. After these allegations, some members of the press carelessly exposed private details from Mona Sahlin's life to the public under the guise of an “unavoidable general interest ” . As with the hasty judgments of the press, which went as far as the accusation of white-collar crimes , ethical principles were overridden. A newspaper article by the well-known novelist Jan Guillou , who had established before the opening of the preliminary investigation, that Sahlin was “purely legally” responsible for a “five-year long series of criminal offenses” was considered exemplary in this regard . There were also attacks such as questioning children and ambushing relatives of the politician. The heated atmosphere would have led to suspicions and exaggerated "media constructions" , which in turn were the basis for real violence in the form of gross insults, anonymous calls, etc. In fact, Mona Sahlin was still under strict personal protection in 2010 , as she often received threatening letters and occasionally even reports of murder.

Further development

Mona Sahlin (2010)

After Mona Sahlin had taken a three-year hiatus, Prime Minister Göran Persson appointed her to his government in 1998 as Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs. There she was responsible for labor law issues, among other things . In the following years she worked as Minister of Integration (from 2000) and Environment Minister (from 2004). On March 17, 2007, she was elected the first female leader of the Swedish Social Democrats.

In her new functions, too, she has been confronted with the Toblerone affair - right up to the present day . Political opponents threw Toblerone chocolate at Mona Sahlin several times during public appearances or speeches in order to protest against her person, for example on the occasion of an election campaign in Trollhättan . Before the 2010 Reichstag election , the Christian Democratic politician Mats Odell , with a clear attack on Sahlin, described the plans of the red-green alliance to reform the health and school system as “pure Toblerone politics” . The statement caused widespread outrage in Sweden, not only in the camp of the Social Democrats and the Red-Green Alliance, but also among PR advisors and political scientists.

In 2002, the Danish author Hanne-Vibeke Holst published her novel Kronprinsessen (The Crown Princess), in which a young, idealistic politician is gradually disaffected. She gradually realizes that it is impossible to combine her private life with the requirements of a ministerial office. After internal party disputes and critical press releases, she gives up her career. According to many reviewers, Mona Sahlin is one of the role models of the fictional protagonist. The book was filmed in Sweden for a television series; Alexandra Rapaport embodied the role of the politician .

In December 2011, Mona Sahlin made the credit card used to make the controversial payments available for auction by the Swedish Broadcasting Agency .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See The Chancellery of the Ministries and the Ministries Regeringskansliet, August 21, 2007 (accessed September 8, 2010)
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Stefan Wahlberg: Ett oavvisligt allmänintresse. Om mediedrev och politiska affärer , Stockholm 2008
  3. ^ Expressen , October 7, 1995
  4. ↑ a b c d Britta Svensson: Nej det handlade inte bara om Toblerone… ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Expressen, February 12, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.expressen.se
  5. ↑ a b Robert Triches: Nu är toblerone-affären historia Aftonbladet March 16, 2007
  6. ↑ Flera skandaler kring Sahlins ekonomi Svenska Dagbladet, January 10, 2002
  7. ↑ a b Försvarstalet - ord för ord Aftonbladet, March 16, 2007
  8. ^ Peter Cassirer: Tobleronetalen. In: RhetorikMagasinet [Stockholm], no. 32, December 2006, pp. 2–6, here p. 4.
  9. ^ Dagens Nyheter , November 5, 1995
  10. ↑ Cf. Roger Hällhag / Uwe Optenhögel: Mona Sahlin - Swedish Social Democrats Elect a Woman Leader (PDF; 867 kB) Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Stockholm 2007
  11. ↑ Karin Johansson: Sahlins timeout är över  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Sydsvenskan, January 18, 2010@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.sydsvenskan.se  
  12. ^ Göteborgs-Posten , October 14, 1995
  13. ^ Expressen , October 17, 1995
  14. ^ Aftonbladet , October 13, 1995
  15. ↑ See also Agnes Bühring / Alexander Budde : Schweden - Eine Nachbarschaftskunde , Berlin 2007, p. 82.
  16. ↑ See also David Andersson: Myten om Toblerone Kristianstadsbladet, July 5, 2010
  17. ↑ See on the subject of the “principle of publicity”: The “transparent Swede” is not a fear of the citizens Welt Online, June 20, 2008
  18. ^ Aftonbladet , October 16, 1995
  19. ↑ See Kristina Widestedt: Mediers våld mot offentliga personer. In: Agneta Blom (ed.), I mediernas våld? , Stockholm 2004, pp. 63-74.
  20. ↑ Säkerheten Höjs kring Sahlin efter fler hot ( Memento of the original from August 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Expressen, August 16, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.expressen.se
  21. ↑ Tobleroneattack mot Mona Sahlin ( Memento of the original from September 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Expressen, August 16, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.expressen.se
  22. ↑ KD-tal om Toblerone fick rödgröna att ilskna till Dagens Nyheter, April 27, 2010
  23. ↑ Odells Toblerone-utspel sågas E24, April 27, 2010
  24. ↑ Kronprinsessen af ​​Hanne-Vibeke Holst ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Litteratursiden, November 27, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.litteratursiden.dk
  25. ↑ Nu kan du köpa Mona Sahlins Toblerone-kort Aftonbladet, December 15, 2011

literature

  • Christer Isaksson: I väntan på Mona Sahlin . Prisma, Stockholm 2008, ISBN 978-91-518-4982-9 . (Swedish)
  • Stefan Wahlberg: Ett oavvisligt all-male interest. Om mediedrev och politiska affärer . Timbro, Stockholm 2008, ISBN 978-91-7566-528-3 . (Swedish; online as PDF file)
  • Peter Cassirer: Tobleronetalet . In: RhetorikMagasinet , Stockholm, No. 32, December 2006. (Swedish; contains the full text of Mona Sahlin's speech at her press conference on October 16, 1995, as well as a rhetorical analysis of the speech)
  • Kristina Widestedt: Mediers våld mot offentliga personer . In: Agneta Blom (Ed.): I mediernas våld? Fritze, Stockholm 2004, ISBN 91-38-22447-X , pp. 63-74. (Swedish; online as PDF file)
  • Mona Sahlin: Med mina ord . Rabén Prisma, Stockholm 1996, ISBN 91-518-3006-X . (Swedish)