Persson cabinet

After the 2002 elections, electoral workers in the Stockholm area expressed concerns about how Social Democratic campaign workers had collected large numbers of voting cards from voters and voted on their behalf. To collect large quantities of voting cards and vote in such a way is unconstitutional and therefore gained some initial media attention. The county and city of Stockholm, governed by a coalition led by the Moderate Party, became subject to change of leadership as a result of the election and the criticism was quickly silenced. The circumstances of the suspected ballot rigging was never investigated. There have been other cases that have led to evictions at 2002 elections for ballot rigging by Social democratic party members working in the election offices. Many reports of other ballot rigging have also been announced throughout the country by other parties but in lack of proof none has gone to court.

During 2005 a scandal erupted as a result of widespread discontent with the lack of government aid to Swedes who fell victims to the notorious tsunami disaster, killing hundreds of Swedish tourists in December 2004. The criticism emerged early since the government refused to give clearance to prepared Swedish military rescue planes to aid in the rescue efforts in Asia. The planes were left stranded on Swedish airfields and Swedish tourists, in many cases severely injured, had to wait for the few crowded regular flights that were available back home to Sweden. A committee initiated an investigation in 2005 to shed some light on what really happened during the Christmas of 2004 and if anyone ever had noticed the early reports from the Swedish military intelligence offices. The scandal escalated into a case for the Swedish standing committee of constitution inqueries (constitutional court) as it became evident that Swedish government officials either lied or refused to answer properly to the questions asked by the investigators. In early 2006 the scandal reached its climax as top ministers, including the prime minister, were interrogated under trial-like circumstances broadcast live on Swedish television. There has also been suspicious deletion of communication traffic registers and e-mails regarding the time of this event. A directive was changed to delete this kind of data after a shorter time and after it had been done the directive was once again revised to its original writing. After the election and a new cabinet come to be in power. Backup tapes of the deleted information has now been found stored in a vault in the cellar.

During the live broadcast interrogations the CEO of the largest privately held Swedish TV-channel, Jan Scherman, claimed that Prime Minister Göran Persson threatened him during the election campaign in 2002. According to Mr. Scherman, Persson said that "TV4 is investing heavy in a non-socialistic election victory", if the socialists wins you "will have a lots of enemies in Rosenbad". The claims never gained as much public interest as did the other scandals, even though the accusations enhanced the image of Mr. Persson trying to gain control of the major free media companies. In Sweden, the Swedish Television, SVT, with the other two large TV-channels, SVT1 and SVT2, is connected to the government and Social Democrats hold key positions among the board of directors. Björn Rosengren, Social Democrat, former Minister of Enterprise and close friend of Göran Persson, has rapidly gained an influential position in the Swedish media company MTG which in turn owns TV-channels and newspapers such as Metro International.

In 2006 an extensive e-mail based defamation campaign primarily targeting the family of Swedish leading opposition politician Fredrik Reinfeldt was revealed in Swedish media. The content of the letters written were rumours about irregularities or illegal actions claimed to have been performed by Fredrik Reinfeldt himself or his close relatives. According to computer specialists the source of the campaign had been tracked down to computers located at the Social Democratic HQ in central Stockholm. Initially spokespersons of the Social Democratic Party denied all involvement in the defamation but were later forced to confess that one of their employees had written the letters as evidence became overwhelming. The case was reported to the police by the Moderate Party but was closed a few days later since it was considered a private law-issue.

The raid of 31 May 2006 on The Pirate Bay ISP PRQ is thought to be a direct result of the justice minister Thomas Bodström. As a result, he is now the subject of an investigation by the Constitutional Committee. This type of 'interference' in the functioning of independent authorities such as the police, called 'ministerstyre', is by Swedish law prohibited. Media requested to see e-mails that could be relevant to the matter but the 700 of the 900 e-mails requested were denied on the basis that they were top secret declaration. Previously, the government said that the matter would be open for public review. When it was asked why the e-mails had been declared top secret Thomas Bodström said that they were covered by the secrecy declaration which is determined by the government.

In the aftermaths of criticism following on the tsunami disaster, the harshly criticised Swedish minister of foreign affairs, Laila Freivalds, managed to maintain her office. However, in 2006 another embarrassing scandal erupted with its roots in Denmark where paintings of the Muslim prophet Muhammed were published during the fall of 2005. A Swedish right-wing political newspaper decided to publish them as well on the Internet edition of their publication, the webpage however was quickly closed down by the ISP after intervention from the Swedish Security Service and the Swedish office of foreign affairs. The close down became subject to much debate and some journalists compared it to the censorship of anti-German articles during WWII. Mrs. Freivalds denied at first all involvement in the case, but was forced to confess as official reports clearly pointed out her central role in the closing of the webpage. The political pressure became too much and Prime Minister Göran Persson, flanked by Mrs. Freivalds herself, chose to briefly declare the resignation of his minister of foreign affairs under a short press conference. That Freivalds did not declare the expected news herself, despite the fact that she was obviously present on the press conference, quickly spurred discussions about whether she resigned voluntarily or actually got dismissed by the prime minister.