Night after night she stands in a television studio. Or write long posts on social media. Or being interviewed by journalists who flock around her in the Riksdag.
Deputy party leader Ida Gabrielsson appears everywhere when the Left Party has to defend and explain why they are acting the way they are doing right now.
- I am the one responsible for the government negotiations. Therefore, I am the one who has taken these discussions, says Ida Gabrielsson to DN.
She was born in 1981, grew up in Sandviken with a father who worked in a shop and a mother who worked in care. As a child, she accompanied her parents in the Social Democrats' May Day parade, she recently told in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet. She explains that as a teenager she chose V and not S by saying that in Sandviken it was cooler to be left-wing.
Ida Gabrielsson is not afraid to take on conflicts and stir the pot, notes a person who was politically active in the mill at the same time as her.
Then, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, V was in the middle of a generational shift locally. Older former VPK members were replaced by young, mainly women who advocated for animal rights, gender equality and who wanted courses in feminist self-defense on the school curriculum.
- For being so young, she was well-read and ideologically knowledgeable. She pushed the new issues around feminism hard, says the source.
Constantly letting Ida Gabrielsson front the Left Party during the beginning of the government negotiations is a well-thought-out strategy.
- We "Anders Tegnellar" Ida, says party leader Nooshi Dadgostar.
By that she means that for the outside world there should be no doubt whatsoever about where the Left Party stands: Magdalena Andersson is the party's prime ministerial candidate and V will sit in the government.
Similar to former state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell's role during the pandemic, when he constantly repeated the Public Health Agency's message in the media.
Nooshi Dadgostar and Ida Gabrielsson have worked together for a long time. When Dadgostar was elected party leader in 2020, Gabrielsson was appointed deputy party leader. A decade earlier, in the youth association Ung Vänster, the roles were reversed.
The collaboration is so close that there is talk within V that a bunker gang has arisen around the duo.
- Some think so because they also want to be in that bunker. "Didn't I get that mail?" Then you say "no one is allowed to join", although you might mean "I would have liked to join", says Gabrielsson in the interview with Svenska Dagbladet.
She is not only visible in the TV box. She is also very active in social media, especially X. When Anders Ygeman (S) and Rickard Nordin (C) appeared in Aktuellt höromkällen, without V, there were many posts by Ida Gabrielsson. She raged at their performance, calling it "shameless" and "incredibly ugly".
That you are so active in social media, is that also part of the government negotiations?
- We don't have think tanks or leader pages that are big and V-marked. When others try to set the agenda with their sources or editorial writers, I think everyone benefits from the fact that it is also clear what we want, says Ida Gabrielsson.
But as a chief negotiator, isn't it a point to try to build trust between you?
- We have a very strong trust in each other.
Ida Gabrielsson emphasizes that she is the one who, on V's behalf, has negotiated all cross-party agreements during the last mandate period.
- Then it is clear that once we enter into substantive negotiations, then I cannot be the one who fronts in this way.
So as long as we see you in the TV box, we know that you haven't started discussing substantive issues?
- Yes, exactly. But there is no reason for us to be silent now.
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