Gudrun Schyman

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Gudrun Schyman

Gudrun Schyman (born June 9, 1948, Täby, Uppland) is a Swedish politician. She served as leader of the Swedish Left Party from 1993 until January 2003, when she was forced to resign over charges of tax fraud. She remained a member of the Left Party until 2004, when she left to focus entirely on her feminist political work. She is still a Member of Parliament.

Schyman began her political career in Marxist-Leninistiska Kampförbundet .

[edit] Leader of the Left Party

Following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, Schyman was elected party leader. Vänsterpartiet Kommunisterna (Left Party - Communists) had then evolved into Vänsterpartiet (Left Party).

Schyman's greatest asset was her appeal to the voters, which more than doubled the number of MPs during her leadership. She gained popularity for her candidness and her ability to speak openly about her struggle with alcoholism. During her period as party president the party adopted feminism as an ideological basis. In 2003 she was charged with misleading the tax authorities by attempting to make illicit tax deductions. She was temporarily succeeded by Ulla Hoffmann.

In 2002, she had held a speech in which she compared men with talibans and in October 2004, Schyman proposed that men pay an additional "man tax" to cover the cost of domestic violence. Schyman was reported as saying that, "We have to have a discussion so that men understand that they have a collective financial responsibility." These statements met with much outrage and did much damage to her reputation and popularity.

[edit] Founder of the Feminist Initiative

Schyman left the Left Party in 2004 and in 2005 she co-founded Feminist Initiative, an organization which at its first congress decided to contest the coming parliamentary elections. In 2006, she recruited Jane Fonda to appear with her in the campaign before the 2006 election. Feminist Initiative received only approximately 0,7% of the votes, as opposed to the 4% needed to get into the Riksdag, or the very optimistic 8-13% that Schyman had estimated in interviews.