Center party leader Annie Lööf said today that she regrets the Center party congress’s decision to work towards making circumcision illegal except when necessary for medical reasons. At press conferences today, Lööf stressed that it was not the position favored by party leadership, and that freedom of religion is really (really!) important to the Center party.
Since the current Social Democratic-led government is beholden to the Center party for its continued existence, what the Center party decides, at its congress or otherwise, matters. Perhaps decisions like these are like the Swedish expression barnsjukdomar, which means something like growing pains as the body matures, that then blow over as they grow up. The Center party has support numbers that allows them to flex some muscle – but that makes their tantrums all the more problematic.