Lars Ohly

Lars-Magnus Harald Christoffer Ohly (born 13 January 1957) is a Swedish politician, and the former party chairman of the Swedish Left Party.

Ohly became a member of the Liberal Youth of Sweden, the youth wing of the Liberal People's Party, in 1970, but left shortly afterwards, and became a communist.

After finishing his mandatory military service in the Swedish Army in 1977 and gymnasium (secondary) education in 1978, he started working at Statens Järnvägar (Swedish State Railways), where he later became a conductor (tågmästare).

He joined the Communist Youth in 1978, and the Left Party in 1979.

He became a member of board of the Communist Youth in 1980, was elected as a substitute of the party board in 1987, and became a full member of the party board in 1990.

He is still employed at SJ, but is on leave of absence since 1994.

From 1994 to 2000, he was party secretary, and in 2004, he was elected party chairman.

He was a member of the Swedish parliament from 1998 to 2014.

Lars Ohly was born in the Spånga suburb of Stockholm.

His father, like all his forefathers for six generations, was a priest.

He grew up in various places around Stockholm.

He has been a Member of Parliament since 1998.

The programme 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.

It was also found that, in 2000, Ohly had reworded a letter of apology to the "Kiruna-Swedes" - victims of harassment from the Left Party after their return home from Soviet custody - with a number of critical references to Joseph Stalin being removed.

He was elected party chairman on 20 February 2004, succeeding Ulla Hoffmann.

On 5 October 2005, Uppdrag granskning in Sveriges Television (the Swedish public service television) aired a programme about Lars Ohly's background and views on democracy.

In the programme, Ohly was accused of trying to rewrite his own history and of hiding his past.

Several quotes by Ohly were found where he defended the political systems of the Eastern bloc.

Several prominent party members, among them former party leader Lars Werner, also witnessed about Ohly's views.

On 30 October 2005, Ohly declared on Swedish TV that he would stop labeling himself a communist.

But he stressed at the same time that he would stay faithful to the ideals of communism and always would keep fighting for a "classless society".

During the controversy regarding Ohly's views on communism and his definition of socialism and socialist leadership, Ohly's membership in the Swedish-Cuban Association became known.

The Swedish-Cuban Association supported the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba and does not want to label the country as a dictatorship.

Ohly then released a statement that he considers Cuba to be a dictatorship and that he is critical of the lack of political freedom in Cuba, a statement which in response was criticized by the chairman of the Swedish-Cuban Association.

In September 2005, Ohly declared that he had left the organisation.

During a live debate on Swedish TV4 on 18 September 2006, the day after the Swedish general election, Ohly caused some controversy when he showed the middle finger to the right-wing commentator Marie Söderqvist for calling his leadership style typical of a communist.

Ohly later apologized and said that he experienced a "temporary blackout".

Ohly is strongly opposed to letting privately owned companies operate in industries traditionally controlled by the Swedish state, for instance education and healthcare.

However, both his children go to private schools.

Ohly says his children made their choices based on what was best for them, independent of his views on the matter.

Lars Ohly was in 2008 nominated for the award Kurd friend of the year (Swedish: Årets kurdvän 2008).

Årets kurdvän is one of the awards presented annually by the Kurdish gala jury that celebrates the active and successful Kurds and friends of Kurds in Sweden.

In August 2011, Ohly announced his resignation.

In November 2017, Ohly was banned from attending Left Party events, including the party congress, after allegations of sexual harassment towards women.

He left the party in January 2018.

During his first weeks as party chairman, Ohly claimed in an interview to once have, as a boy, played football against Swedish football legend Nacka Skoglund in a friendly match.

The newspaper Dagens Nyheter later revealed that this claim was most likely fictitious.

When confronted about this, Ohly claimed it to be an indeliberate error on his part.

Lars Ohly used to be an outspoken communist.