After the massive criticism against Andersson – S backs up

There has been strong criticism of Magdalena Andersson (S) after her questioning of the right-wing debater Henrik Jönsson.
But the Social Democrats stand behind the former prime minister.
– It is extremely naive to make this a question about Henrik Jönsson, says member of parliament Annika Strandhäll (S).

It was after an interview in Dagens Nyheter that dealt with Russian influence campaigns before the upcoming EU elections that the conflict started. The former prime minister asked where Henrik Jönsson gets his money from. A statement that received enormous criticism from both the left and the right.

Svenska Dagbladet’s lead writer Mattias Svensson writes that Andersson spreads “baseless and conspiratorial speculations”. Labor’s Anders Klenell believes that Andersson’s statement is beyond all criticism.

Henrik Jönsson has 134,000 subscribers on YouTube and is often critical of the Social Democrats. He himself is also very critical of Andersson’s questioning of him and believes that he has been slandered.

– This has gone disastrously wrong. Raising my name in this context becomes an implicit suspicion of me as a debater, he says.

“The question is completely reasonable”

Annika Strandhäll, who represented the Social Democrats during the debate in Efter fem, disagrees with Jönsson. She believes that clarity and transparency are important for individual debaters, just as with political parties.

– Magdalena Andersson’s question is completely reasonable. The only thing she has done is to ask the question “who finances the type of debaters that Henrik Jönsson is”, says the Member of Parliament.

According to Henrik Jönsson, he is both clear and transparent about where he finances, namely via swish donations from private individuals and small business owners.

– There is nothing strange about this, he says.

I don’t buy Jönsson’s explanation

Annika Strandhäll claims that the questioning of Jönsson is about not wanting to end up in a situation with negative campaigns that are unknown to those who fund them. She also does not buy the debater’s explanation that he can support himself solely with donations from private individuals and emphasizes that she thinks the focus of the debate is wrong.

– That we end up here when it comes to the influence campaigns and funding that is unclear, we need to continue discussing – and Henrik Jönsson should be more transparent, she concludes.