Mona Sahlin

Mona Sahlin (June 2009)

Mona Ingeborg Sahlin (born March 9, 1957 in Sollefteå ) is a Swedish politician . From March 2007 to March 2011 she was chairwoman of the Swedish Social Democratic Labor Party (SAP) .

During her childhood, Mona Sahlin's father worked in different schools, which is why the family often had to move. Since the mid-1960s, the family lived in the Stockholm suburb of Nacka , where the politician still lives today. In the early 1970s she became a member of the Swedish Social Democratic Youth Association, SSU. In 1982 she married Bo Sahlin and was elected to the Swedish parliament for the first time in the same year . In 1990 she became Minister of Labor. After the lost election in 1991 , Mona Sahlin became General Secretary of the Social Democratic Party.

When Ingvar Carlsson announced in autumn 1995 that he would resign soon, Sahlin was the only one who ran for party leadership. When, in the wake of the so-called Toblerone affair, it came to light that Mona Sahlin had interim financed various private purchases (including two Toblerone bars ) with the government's credit card , had also paid private bills too late and had ignored parking tickets for wrongful parking, Sahlin had to withdraw her candidacy . In April 1996 she also vacated her seat in the Reichstag.

In 1997 Mona Sahlin was named President of the European Year Against Racism . A year later she became rector of the Bommersvik training facility, and in the same year Prime Minister Göran Persson reappointed her to the government as deputy minister of economics. In 2004 she became Minister for Environment and Society, a post she held until the Social Democrats were defeated in September 2006.

On March 17, 2007, Mona Sahlin was unanimously elected to succeed the resigned chairwoman Göran Persson at a party conference. Both Margot Wallström , Carin Jämtin and Ulrica Messing had turned down a candidacy upon request. Mona Sahlin was the first woman to head the Swedish Social Democrats and challenged the incumbent Conservative Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt .

In the event of a victory in the Reichstag elections that took place in September 2010 , the opposition left-wing alliance ( Die Rotgrünen ), led by Mona Sahlin, wanted to stop the construction of new nuclear power plants in Sweden. However, the Social Democrats achieved only 30.7 percent of the vote in the election, the worst result for the party since 1914. On November 14, 2010, Sahlin announced that he would be giving up the party leadership. At the special party conference of the Social Democrats in early 2011, she will no longer run and will not retain her seat in parliament. Håkan Juholt was elected her successor .

On January 25, 2012, the Swedish government nominated Mona Sahlin as a candidate for the post of Director General of the International Labor Organization (ILO) , which became vacant after the resignation of Chilean Juan Somavia. In the elections in May 2012, Sahlin could not prevail among the nine candidates. The Englishman Guy Ryder was elected .

In 2014 Mona Sahlin was appointed national coordinator against violent extremism. She resigned from this post in May 2016 on suspicion of having paid a government employee a much higher salary than he actually received on paper. In February 2017, she admitted this offense. The proceedings were discontinued on payment of a fine of 47,200 kroner (approx. € 5,000).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sweden: Head of the Social Democrats resigns , ORF . November 14, 2010. Retrieved November 15, 2010. 
2. ↑ Sahlin – National Coordinator against Violent Extremism. Socialdemokraterna (Swedish).
3. ↑ Sahlin resigns as coordinator against violent extremism Sveriges television (Swedish).
4. ↑ Mona Sahlin admits crime. Aftonbladet (Swedish).
5. ↑ Sahlin and bodyguards receive a penalty order. In: Expressen (Swedish), accessed March 2, 2017.

Web links

Commons : Mona Sahlin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website (Swedish)
• Swedish Parliament website (Swedish)