The newspaper has mapped out how the municipal top officials – the chairman of the municipal council, Moderate Daniel Filipsson, and the vice chairman of the municipal council, Social Democrat Simon Waern – have acted behind the scenes.
After GP sought comments from the politicians on Tuesday, both have chosen to leave all their assignments on Wednesday.
Secret Power Play
Filipsson and Waern, together with a former politician from the Left Party, have since the spring of 2023 directed politics in Alingsås through secret chats, writes GP.
The power play has taken place behind the backs of both party colleagues and voters.
The Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats, and The Liberals have governed Alingsås in a minority government after an agreement with the Social Democrats in recent years. However, in the chats, which GP has taken part of, it appears that Filipsson and Waern have mostly seen the minority government as a charade and that it is they themselves personally who govern.
The tone in the messages is scornful and sexist, and both politicians and officials are badmouthed. Everything is mixed with concrete political proposals while they share party secrets with each other, according to GP.
"And by the way, about the budget this fall, we can of course coordinate with each other," Waern writes, for example, on one occasion.
"Pretty Sick Period"
The investigation shows that the trio has had a system of mutual checks on each other, which they themselves describe as "terror balance", to prevent anything from leaking out.
When you look in the rearview mirror, it was a pretty sick period we ended up in, where we triggered each other and joked about everything and talked general nonsense. And it became sexism and other things in this, says Filipsson to GP.
Waern says:
It's obviously a joking tone that in hindsight is clearly inappropriate. Inappropriate comments that should never have been made.
