His cell phone keeps ringing. Independent MP, Amineh Kakabaveh has neither secretary nor parliamentary assistant. She is the one who manages her appointments. She had planned to do the interview in the Parliament canteen, but changed her mind and offered to go to his office, “so as not to be disturbed”. It’s 11 a.m. on Tuesday, June 21, and all the Swedish political journalists are hounding her, to find out if she will support the budget of Sweden’s Social Democratic government the next day – which she will.
This sudden popularity, Amineh Kakabaveh owes it to a strange combination of circumstances, due to his departure from the left party, in August 2019. Between two blocks, provided with 174 seats each, the former peshmerga fighter, of Iranian Kurdish origin , Marxist and feminist, finds herself in a position to make and break majorities in Parliament. But it is Sweden’s candidacy for NATO that propels it to the forefront.
No sooner had the kingdom submitted its membership application on May 18 than Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan announced that he would veto it. He accuses Sweden of harboring “terrorists” and find that some “even sit in Parliament”. Among the eight deputies of Kurdish origin, Amineh Kakabaveh knows he is being targeted.
On May 20, in an interview with Swedish radio, the Turkish ambassador in Stockholm, Emre Yunt, confirms. He denounces the agreement she made with the Social Democrats on November 23, 2021, before the election of Magdalena Andersson as Prime Minister. In exchange for her vote, the member obtained in particular that the party judges “unacceptable” the fact that “state actors” – like Turkey – describe the sympathizers of the Syrian Kurdish militias (YPG, People’s Protection Units) as “terrorists”. Mr. Yunt does not hide that he would like to see her extradited to Turkey, ” If it’s possible “he said, before retracting the next day.
“Cowardice” of “the political class”
“At first I thought it was a joke, I’m not even Turkish”, laughs the MP, little colorful dress and wedge sandals, a cascade of black curls tumbling down her shoulders. But the words of the ambassador do not surprise him. Since she regularly uses her speaking time in the Swedish Parliament as a platform to denounce the repression of the Kurds by the Erdogan regime, Amineh Kakabaveh has become one of the Turkish president’s pet peeves.
In Sweden, land of exile for 100,000 Kurds from Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, its positions were relatively consensual, until the country’s candidacy for NATO. Since then, her status as an unlabeled MP and the influence she has been able to derive from it have aroused the annoyance of her colleagues and hatred on social networks, where her opponents revel in the expression “political savage” – “vile polititisk” – used to describe an independent Member. “But I also received thousands of messages of support”she says.
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