Stalinism, bullying and a doormat for the Social Democrats. Hard words were directed at the Left Party's leadership when the members of parliament Lorena Delgado Varas and Daniel Riazat announced that they are leaving the party, days after expulsion cases were initiated against them.
But the view of the two members is probably divided, believes Jonas Hinnfors, professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg.
The party has handled a few such changes without taking huge damage. Some will think that you are too hard, others will probably think that these are troublemakers, roughly, and wonder why they do not follow the party's line, he says.
Did not affect opinion
He mentions Björn Alling and Kristofer Lundberg, two other recently expelled and activist V-politicians.
Both started new parties – which Riazat and Delgado Varas hinted that they might do – but disappeared from the media landscape and V did not lose in opinion. There were no major consequences either when the new, partly heavily criticized and less radical party program was passed last year.
Party leaders must have a line. It can be changed, but then it is a new line that you must keep. These are people who have difficulty adapting to certain issues. Then it becomes difficult. But I am a bit skeptical that it will happen so much, says Hinnfors about the potential for increased division in the party.
He does not think that Delgado Varas and Riazat can accomplish much during the rest of the term in the Riksdag. He compares with when Amineh Kakabaveh was expelled from V and during the government crisis in 2021 had the opportunity to influence the S-led government. That is not the situation in the Riksdag today.
It is very difficult to see that they would be able to have any concrete influence, so they are simply marginalized.
Can help with S
One of the accusations directed at Nooshi Dadgostar, and before that Jonas Sjöstedt, is that they compromise away their left-wing politics to be accepted into a potential future S-led government.
Has this affected Magdalena Andersson's attitude towards V?
I think S is generally skeptical of letting V in. But it has been easy for S to point to this type of expression of V's members and say "this is not a serious party".
Now you can instead claim that there is a bit more order in V, he says.
But whether it is enough is very difficult to say. It is 100 years of mistrust.
