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Checkmate, Löfven!

Katerina Janouch brought Sweden's PM out of the woodwork. And now...


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Sweden's been rocked - to say the least - by one of the biggest scandals in modern times. The negligence and corruption is soaking through the very fabric of the nation. To dig deep down into this mess would take a full dissertation. But as the waves of uproar grew higher, Sweden's prime minister was studiously silent.

Beloved author Katerina Janouch drew him out the other day with crafty screed, and now that he's finally met the media and the public, she has a few more words to say, words that echo the sentiment of a nation.

Several links at the bottom of this page, to BBC News, ABC News, the Financial Times, Reuters, and Rick Falkvinge can explain what the furore's all about.

There he stood, Löfven, at the long-awaited press conference, flanked by supreme commander Micael Bydén, the new head of the Transport Authority Jonas Bjelfvenstam, and the head of the Security Police Anders Thornberg. Löfven's script was rich in words, and he spoke solemnly about knowing little, far from everything, but not at the right time, or how. And he pointed out that Sweden needs whistleblowers.



But it's still checkmate, Löfven. You've got nowhere to go, no squares on the board you can move to. Your press conference was a sorry mess, a trampled nothing burger. What we saw was a prime minister who has no clue about national security and who doesn't know what his own cabinet ministers are doing. More and more we get the impression of an absent father who's trying to explain away his lack of responsibility, as well as the lack of confidence his cabinet ministers have in him. Do they trust him? Is that why they didn't inform him in these very important matters? Ygeman, Andersson, Johansson, Hultqvist: are they going behind daddy's back, sneaking around, hiding things? What a mess. And Sweden's reputation? We better not talk about that.



The opposition parties were told nothing, this despite the prime minister's duty to inform. He blames a preliminary investigation (which he says he knows nothing about) and says one doesn't inform in such circumstances, but he doesn't tell them that a criminal investigation has begun, or that charges have been brought, or even that there's a court verdict, that it's already over and done. Not even then does he inform them. That can only be called concealment.



Löfven tries to protect himself with vapid phrases, tries to dodge relevant straightforward questions from journalists. He comes back with obtuse explanations. Blames things on subordinates, on other cabinet ministers. But they ask again and again. He dances, he dodges. Let me answer for you, Stefan Löfven. Either you're lying to the entire nation right in their faces, and you've known all along what's going on, or you actually knew nothing at all about one of the biggest security scandals in modern times. But your cabinet ministers - they knew! The supreme commander knew! The Department of Defence knew! The Department of Justice knew! But you didn't know? You're not a very good leader for our country.



And in either case, it's time you turned over the controls to someone more capable.

Check, Löfven. Checkmate.

Man up, Stefan. Get up from that desk now. Congratulate everyone on a game well played.

'Top-secret intelligence on military vehicles and their secret locations, people's physical and mental health, bridges, ports, and lots of other things, which in the wrong hands can compromise Sweden's national security - they are now in the hands of the Czech Republic, Moldavia, Serbia, and other countries with IBM operations.'
 - Rebecca Uvell

'An apocalyptically stupid and monstrously damaging data leak.'
 - Rick Falkvinge

See Also
Katerina Janouch: Schack matt, Löfven
Reuters: Swedish PM calls potential IT leak 'disaster' and risk to country
ABC News: Swedish leader says security leak in 2015 was disaster
BBC News: Sweden data leak 'a disaster', says PM
Financial Times: Sweden grapples with huge leak of confidential information
Katerina Janouch: En svensk statsminister tiger
Falkvinge: Swedish administration leaked EU's secure STESTA intranet to Russia, then tried glossing over it

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