Left Party Lets Somali MP Skip Party Dues to Pay Child Support Debts
Sweden's Left Party has exempted new MP Mohamed Ali from the share of salary every other MP pays the party, so he can clear around 40 debts - many of them unpaid child support. A former party official calls it "absolutely unbelievable".
BORLĂ„NGE - Sweden's Left Party is quietly helping its new Somali-born MP Mohamed Ali pay off his debts - including years of unpaid child support.
Left Party representatives normally hand part of their political salaries to the party. Ali has been exempted, so the money can instead go to the Swedish Enforcement Authority, which collects unpaid debts. His debt restructuring covers some 40 items, a large number of them child support he failed to pay for his own children.
Frida Holmgren, former deputy chair of the Left Party in Dalarna, is furious. Speaking to Expressen, she asked how a party calling itself both socialist and feminist can justify an MP who simply ignored paying for his children.
"No, it is absolutely unbelievable," she said.
Because the party forgoes money other MPs pay in, she argues, the members are effectively footing part of the bill. She dismisses the claim that Ali could not afford the payments as "just nonsense".
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Campaigned against party rules
When members in Dalarna set their parliamentary list, climate spokesperson Kajsa Fredholm took first place. Ali was well down the list, and party guidelines tell candidates not to run personal campaigns to overturn the members' ranking.
On 20 August, Ali nonetheless urged his Facebook followers to tick his name on the ballot. Personal votes - surrounded by suspicions of clan voting and vote-buying - carried him into parliament. Fredholm has since announced she is leaving politics.
The party leadership raised no public objection, either during the campaign or after the result.
Told to keep quiet
Holmgren says several party colleagues have contacted her with the same concerns. When she raised the matter with the parliamentary group, she was advised to keep a low profile.
Group leader Samuel Gonzalez Westling has defended Ali even after false claims surfaced in his CV, including on a job application that won him a post at Borlänge municipality in 2025. Ali denies deliberately withholding information and said in September he would complete his debt restructuring.
The party leadership did not answer Expressen's questions. Its press office did, however, contact Holmgren ahead of publication.
"I would like to see a Dalarna uprising," she said.
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Mats Dagerlind · Senior Political Columnist
Mats Dagerlind is Senior Political Columnist at Samnytt and Samnytt News. A veteran Swedish political commentator and essayist, he covers Swedish domestic politics, free speech, cultural identity, and media accountability.
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