KD politicians in Tyresö are charged with assault - removed from the ballot

Erik Kainulainen (KD) sits as a member of the Culture and Leisure Board in Tyresö. He also stands as a substitute on the KD's party board in the municipality. Until recently, he was in eighth place on the ballot for the municipal council.

At the same time, he will appear in court in a few weeks, charged with assault and molestation of a relative in February 2025. According to the indictment, he has, among other things, strangled the relative and pushed him to the ground.

- I do not consider that I have done anything illegal and I have witnesses who will be able to tell about what actually happened, says Erik Kainulainen to SVT, about the incident.

Erik Kainulainen has previously been sentenced to prison for stabbing a man in the arm with a knife, minor assault and threatening an official. No later than 2025, he was convicted of two cases of contribution offences.

His past has not been a secret. The party has distributed leaflets about his story and he has lectured to young people in the church about how he left crime.

Ulf Perbo, chairman of KD in Tyresö and first name on the party's ballot, has announced to SVT that he supports Erik Kainulainen's candidacy pending the verdict.

"We hope that everything will continue to develop positively and that he will become an example of how you can change your life and that he will be able to receive a suitable position of trust", writes Ulf Perbo, among other things, to SVT.

He says, however, that in the event of a conviction, Kainulainen would not be given a position of trust.

When SVT takes the question to Carl-Johan Schiller, KD's district chairman in Stockholm County, the answer is different:

- That people have a checkered past is nothing that should disqualify them from being involved in politics. Everyone deserves a second chance after atoning for their crime. In this case, however, the person in question is the subject of a new charge that I, as the District Chair, was not aware of, and we are taking it very seriously. The person is no longer on our list and we have asked him to leave his positions of trust.

According to Schiller, the prosecution means that Kainulainen violates the candidacy declaration he signed, which states that one cannot run if one finds oneself in a situation that could affect confidence in the candidacy. Ulf Perbo (KD) has not answered SVT's questions about why he reasoned differently.