Libertas in Sweden; Libertas EP election controversy number 4,5?

[mccafferty cat]

Just when you thought it couldn't get any more sinister.

An attempt to bribe another party into a merger?!

[seabhcan]

It looks like Decco is going down in flames. If he's smart he'll write this off as a learning experience and move on now. But he has a history of not knowing when to cut and run.

[myk]

Both Anita kelly, a spokesperson for Libertas, and a Libertas reoresentitive in Sweden have said that while there was discussion of budgets necessary to run a campaign which included Junilistan they were not offered money as it's being made out here.

The story also neglects to include the fact that Junilistan will be running candidates in the Euopean Elections competing for Sweden's 19 EP seats. Their announcement also comes on the day Libertas was offically recognised as a political party in Sweden. It fails to consider the possible political motivation Junilistan's claim.

I think it is quite obvious from the story that Junilistan would be running its own comments in the European elections. The story does state that the party has sitting MEPs. If Libertas wanted to comment they should have returned the calls of the Irish Times journalist working on this story.

Ganley certainly has had a run of bad luck in the allies he has tried to recruit across Europe.

[NM_123]

Wow, looks like Ganley could even outbride FF.

[Thac0man]

Both Anita kelly, a spokesperson for Libertas, and a Libertas reoresentitive in Sweden have said that while there was discussion of budgets necessary to run a campaign which included Junilistan they were not offered money as it's being made out here.

The story also neglects to include the fact that Junilistan will be running candidates in the Euopean Elections competing for Sweden's 19 EP seats. Their announcement also comes on the day Libertas was offically recognised as a political party in Sweden. It fails to consider the possible political motivation Junilistan's claim.

True, there could well be a political motivation behind the release of this story and how it is framed, it certinaly seems to be the case. But that highlights the difficulty Libertas is going to have facing rivals who already have an established platform that Libertas wants to exploit.

By sidestepping local elections Libertas is not building a party that brings anything except a brand to established political parties in the EU. Parties which already have a greater degree of success than Libertas. The Libertas experiment in creating a pan-European party is also based on courting groups who represent dispirit national based agendas. So even if Libertas can get over its lack of grass roots support, they may not be able to maintain a unified front among the candidates it does manage to put forward.

Libertas have taken on too much. They should have started at local level, sourced and vetted candidates and refined their political ethos before taking on the EU elections. As it is, I don't expect Libertas to win a single seat. If they do however win seats, the national balance of successful candidates may spell the end of Libertas in its current form. They cannot fight both the establishment and the opposition. And that is exactly what they have set themselves on course to do.

[mccafferty cat]

Ganley certainly has had a run of bad luck in the allies he has tried to recruit across Europe.

This was always going to be a problem though. His target audience was always going to be Eurosceptic parties and politicians - who tend to be on the hard right or hard left, pretty eccentric, and ameteurish in how they approach politics.

[mccafferty cat]

“I have at least a dozen witnesses who can verify that these approaches were made.”

Looks like this guy might be the first person that Mr. Ganley WON'T threaten to sue!!

This party has 3 seats out of 19 - so they're roughly equivalent to SF here in Ireland (2 seats out of 15)

Imagine if Ganley went to SF and said: "Here's a million quid - how about a reverse takeover?" He would be laughed off the pitch. Which seems to be what has happened in Sweden.

Refusing calls is also hilarious. This from an organisation who has protested in the past about NOT having been asked to comment

It shows up the extraordinarily amateurish nature of the Libertas setup