Gudrun Schyman

Gudrun Schyman (born June 9, 1948) is a female Swedish politician. Currently a Member of Parliament for the Swedish Left Party, of which she served as leader from 1993 until January 2003, when she was forced to resign over charges of tax fraud. Shyman began her political career by joining a secterist Marxist-Leninist grouping (KFML) on the far left in the mid 1970s, but later claimed that she never had been a communist and that she only joined because she had been in love with one of the activists. Following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union Schyman, as the elected leader, she was successful in transforming the public perception of the party from a old communist party, albeit a reformed one, into a populist party, that was ideologically to the left and embracing feminism.

Even though the public perception of the party changed under her leadership senior party members are still admittedly communists, and in some respects there seems to have been few changes at the core. Shyman's greatest asset was her appeal to the voters, which doubled the number of MP's during her leadership, and because of this her transgressions were forgiven by the party and recurring public scandals did not seem to affect her popularity. In 2003 she was charged with missleading the tax authorities by attempting to make illicit deductions. Part of her populist agenda was based on critisism against that kind of behaviour and this finally made it impossible for her to continue as the head of the party. She was succeeded by the Ulla Hoffman.

See also: Elections in Sweden