Allard hijacked Bonnier newspaper – accused of running a 'troll factory'

Markus Allard, leader of the local Örebro Party, wrote several nasty comments about himself in a survey for politicians. The local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda took the bait – believing that the reviews came from other politicians – and now accuses Allard of running a ‘troll factory’.

It was on November 24 this year that a reporter at Nerikes Allehanda, which is part of the Bonnier Group, sent an email to the 101 members and substitutes in the Örebro Municipal Council.

The recipients of the email are asked to respond to an attached survey with a number of questions:

‘Have you been subjected to violence, vandalism or theft during the last term of office?’

‘How do you perceive the political conversation in the Örebro Municipal Council?’

‘Have you been subjected to personal attacks during the last term of office?’

Örebro Party ate my candy

Markus Allard, one of the five members of the Örebro Party in the municipal council, is one of those who received the email with a link to the survey. And when he reads the questions, he gets the feeling that this is directed at him and his party.

‘It’s more or less a commissioned job,’ he tells Samnytt.

When Allard opens the survey, he realizes that there is no limit to how many times one can fill it out. And he can also sign his answers with any name or party designation he wants.

So Allard, as he says, ‘gets a feeling’, and fills out the survey with made-up accusations against the Örebro Party. One funnier than the other. All in order to see if the newspaper ‘falls into the trap’ and uncritically publishes the answers.

‘I usually buy a bag of candy and bring it with me to the bench. When I left the candy bag in the room, someone ate my candy. It has happened at several meetings now in the Municipal Council chamber. The Örebro Party sits behind us. I have no evidence, but I have my suspicions, if you know what I mean!’ he writes, for example, in one of the survey responses.

Published by Nerikes Allehanda

Just over two weeks later, Nerikes Allehanda publishes an article with the headline: ‘The hatred from within – against Örebro’s politicians’. In it, Allard is accused of spreading terror and fear among the other politicians; not least through his debating method, where he often makes sharp attacks on his opponents.

But what really makes him raise his eyebrows is that one of his creative survey responses has been published in the article. The newspaper seemingly did not bother to verify their authenticity. This is how the published survey response, which Allard wrote, reads:

‘Yes, as an old teacher, I’m used to dealing with disagreeable individuals. But Markus Allard takes the cake. Many times he has gone far beyond the limit. On one occasion, I almost started to cry. I had questioned why he wants it like in Nazi Germany and he replied that I was ‘an ignorant idiot’ who apparently couldn’t ‘know anything at all about politics’. He also screamed. And laughed mockingly. It doesn’t feel so fun. The debate was about rainbow-colored park benches, I think.’

‘– Although they have edited the text to make it even more biased,’ Allard points out to Samnytt.

‘– In that survey response, I pretended to be an anonymous liberal woman. And that woman also wants to stifle the debate in the municipal council, so that the Örebro Party should not be able to participate in the debate.’

Accused of being a bully

Allard does not want to give any numbers, but hints that unofficial opinion polls have been conducted indicating that the Örebro Party is currently very strong in the polls. That it stresses especially the Social Democrats, and that the party has therefore turned to Nerikes Allehanda for a ‘hit piece’ against him and his party.

‘They gang up on me and the Örebro Party. At the same time, they try to establish a narrative about bullying. That I am a bully type,’ he says.

He thinks the accusation is absurd and talks about how he himself is treated by the other politicians. How he has been lured to meetings under false pretenses that they will discuss the budget, but instead took the opportunity to vent their spleen over him. When there are no cameras or microphones on.

‘They take turns telling how terrible everything has become since Markus Allard entered the municipal council. They take a round. They go all the way around, and the whole meeting is about how I am a terrible person,’ he says.

For a moment, Allard, who usually is good at maintaining a tough facade, seems emotionally touched.

‘There are twenty people who take turns telling me that I am the worst thing there is!’ he exclaims and says that there have been times when he has stood up and left such meetings.

‘– I don’t want to say that I am bullied, but I still think it’s funny that twenty people sit in a room and explain to one person that that person is bullying the twenty people.’

It’s not about the tone

Those who have listened to the debates in the Örebro Municipal Council have likely heard Markus Allard’s often quite tough tone. Does he ever cross the line?

‘No, I actually don’t think I do. I really don’t think so,’ he replies.

‘They do that to me too. The difference is that I don’t cry about it. They portray me as Adolf Hitler sometimes, really rough stuff, so I could have participated in a crying-out report about it.’

Allard thinks it is a strategic mistake to start talking about the ‘tone’ in the political debate. He mentions the debate about the express buses in Örebro, where there was an outcry when he calmly and sensibly asked if bribes were involved.

‘It’s not about the tone. The tone is a decoy. It’s a way to get us to focus on something else. A distraction. It’s not about the tone,’ he says.

It’s not about the tone but the content?

‘Exactly. It’s not my tone, but the political threat I pose that they really react to.’

The accusation: He runs a troll factory

Anders Nilsson is the editor-in-chief and responsible publisher at Nerikes Allehanda. He rejects the criticism from Allard, which has partly been directed at the newspaper itself.

‘This is classic populist and extremist rhetoric. Allard wants to shift the focus to NA instead of answering why he is a major workplace problem in the municipal council,’ Nilsson writes in an email to Samnytt.

Nilsson also accuses the leader of the Örebro Party of running a ‘troll factory’ because he wrote fake survey responses, which he submitted to the newspaper. Responses that the newspaper published without verifying their authenticity.

‘Allard admits that he acted as his own troll factory and spent working hours remunerated by taxpayers to commit something that can almost be considered fraud and false certification,’ he writes, adding:

‘If he has manipulated our survey tool, we need to get to the bottom of it and ensure that it cannot happen again.’

Anders Nilsson does not answer a question about their responsibility to verify the authenticity of what they publish. Nerikes Allehanda has now amended its article so that the fake survey response written by Allard is no longer included.