Lars Ohly
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Lars Ohly (born January 13, 1957) is a Swedish politician and the current leader of the Swedish Left Party. He was elected Party Leader on February 20th, 2004, succeeding Ulla Hoffmann.
Early life
Lars Ohly was born in Spånga, Stockholm, as the son of a priest. After his studies he started working at the Swedish State Railways (SJ) where he later became train master (tågmästare).
In 1978 he joined the Communist Youth (current Young Left) and in 1979 he joined the Left Party. In 1990 he was elected as member of a board of the Left Party. Between 1994 and 2000 he held the post of Party Secretary and in 2004 he was elected Party Leader. He has been a Member of Parliament (the Riksdag) since 1998.
Fall 2004 controversy
Lars Ohly is an outspoken Communist. In an investigation and interview conducted by Uppdrag: Granskning it was found that, in 2000, Ohly had reworded a letter of apology to Kiruna-swedes - victims of harassment from the Left Party after their return home from Soviet custody - with a number of critical references to Stalin being removed. In the interview, Lars Ohly was forcefully attacked and accused of not being democratic; Ohly defended himself on the grounds that being communist does not imply an endorsement of Soviet-style communism. The investigation also showed that Ohly branded himself as a Leninist as late as 1999.
Following this controversy, the leaders of all the other parliamentary parties have urged Ohly to drop his adherence to communism. However, Ohly is not a revolutionist, and his idea on communist is more of classical social democratic transformation of society.
| Preceded by: Ulla Hoffmann | Leader of the Swedish Left Party 2004— | Succeeded by: Incumbent |