Top politician’s secret chat exposed – resigns

Two leading politicians in Alingsås are leaving their positions with immediate effect. This after an examination by Göteborgs-Posten.

The newspaper has mapped how the municipal leaders – the chairman of the municipal board, the moderate Daniel Filipsson, and the deputy chairman of the municipal board, the social democrat Simon Waern – 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 in the Left Party, have directed politics in Alingsås through secret chats since the spring of 2023, GP writes.

The power play has taken place behind the backs of both party members and voters.

In recent years, M, KD and L have ruled Alingsås in the minority after an agreement with S. But in the chats, which GP has taken part in, it appears that Filipsson and Waern mostly see the minority rule as a charade and that it is they themselves who personally rule.

The tone of the messages is mocking and sexist, and both politicians and civil servants are slandered. Everything is mixed with concrete political proposals while they share party secrets with each other, according to GP.

“And speaking of the budget this autumn, of course we can coordinate with each other,” writes Waern at one point, for example.

“Pretty sick period”

The review shows that the trio had a system of holding hooks on each other, which they themselves describe as the “balance of terror”, so that nothing leaks out.

– When you look in the rearview mirror, it was a rather sick period we ended up in, you could say, where we triggered each other and joked about everything and generally talked shit. And there was sexism and other things in this, says Filipsson to GP.

Waern says this:

– It is an obviously joking jargon which, in retrospect, is of course very inappropriate. Inappropriate comments that should never have been made.