A Russophobic scandal has alarmed Swedish politicians on the eve of the Riksdag elections, which will be held this Sunday.
At the center of the scandal is an activist of the far-right Sweden Democrats party, Paulina Malaberg, who is also the common-law wife of one of its leaders, Gustav Gellerbrant.
Malaberg herself has not reached great heights in the party hierarchy and is not known to the general public. She was an assistant to Sweden Democrats MPs in parliament for two terms and entered into a relationship with Gellerbrant in 2024. However, the activist’s modest achievements did not embarrass the Swedish left, who intend to return to power. She was found guilty of an unforgivable sin by the standards of modern Swedish politics, one capable of casting a shadow over the entire party. She is Russian. And she has not severed all ties with her first homeland.
Paulina Malaberg (née Malashevich) is the daughter of a Russian officer who moved to Sweden in 2006 at the age of 22 and received Swedish citizenship in 2012. All the compromising material that could be dug up on her is that in 2017 she accompanied then-Riksdag MP from her party Pavel Gamov (who, as one might easily guess, is also Russian) on a trip to Russia, has ties to Russian-speaking cultural organizations, and brought her Russian relatives onto the premises of the Swedish parliament.
No “spy drama” was found. Everything found characterizes Paulina only positively — she has not forgotten her native language and culture and maintains contacts with relatives. As for the parliament premises — practically anyone can get in there by buying a tour ticket. In a normal, healthy society, no one would have paid attention to this, especially since the activist’s political position on Russia does not stand out from the general background. But in a society thoroughly infected with Russophobia, the activist’s Russian origin can lead to far-reaching political consequences.
On the eve of the elections, Sweden’s political space is divided almost equally in two. Currently, the Sweden Democrats support the center-right government led by Moderate Coalition Party leader Ulf Kristersson but are not formally part of the ruling coalition. For a long time, they, like Alternative for Germany, were outcasts of Swedish politics, but over time they fit into the local political landscape and, after the new elections, are preparing to formally join the coalition and obtain government posts. Among the Swedish right, there is a consensus on this — without the support of a party polling near 20 percent, they cannot come to power.
The left, led by the Social Democrats, is still leading in the polls, but the gap is small and shrinking. The left’s position is unstable, and a few days before the vote, to prevent their opponents from having time to counterattack, they pulled out their last marked ace — the “Russian threat.” Whether it will work — we will see after the weekend.
