pic: en.wikipedia.org
Aida Hadzialic is back. Three years ago, after having been pulled over driving home from a party, she was found to be over the breath alcohol limit. Of course it was a huge scandal – driving drunk is right up there with tax evasion. But now Hadelius has been plucked out of the freezer of shame and is being rehabilitated by her party as council member of the Social Democratic opposition in Region Stockholm (Stockholms landsting).
Aida Hadzialic was considered a rising star in the Social Democratic party. At only 27 years old, she was made a minister in the first Löfven government. Her immigrant background (her family came here from Bosnia when she was five years old) contributed to her poster child status. But while success stories like hers are massively marketed in Sweden, she was actually popular and respected by party members and even the populace at large.
Many thought her lapse of judgement, resulting in her being put in the party’s doghouse, was a damn shame. Many thought that a couple parts per thousand over the limit was no reason to be so hard on her. The DUI conviction (Driving Under the Influence) could have derailed her chances for a continued political ascent. But she wasn’t considered savvy for nothing. Hadzialic made a full mea culpa and quickly resigned, taking the wind completely out of the sails of her political opponents. Such a cool move only strengthened the premonition that she’d be back.
Not that her new position is much of a boon. With the fiasco spelled New Karolinska, many believed the Stockholm Moderates would be sitting ducks at the last election, and that they’d suffer a withering defeat. But that was not to be, and the Social Democrats lost fairly big. Hadzialic’s return is perhaps a hoped-for comet with coattails big enough for the rest of the party to ride on.