ETC's blunder: published ”victory” in advance - then everything turned around in Parliament

Dagens ETC stated that the government had lost - before the vote was even decided. The article was published in the midst of the drama in the Riksdag, but was quickly removed when reality showed the opposite. In just minutes, the left's proclaimed victory went from ”clear” to total failure.

In the midst of Wednesday's drama in Parliament over stricter citizenship requirements, Dagens ETC published an article with the headline that the Tidö government had ”lost” a historic vote. The article was published while the vote was still in progress, even though the result had not yet been determined, reports Riks.

When the votes were later counted, it turned out that the government side had instead won by 147-146, and the article was removed shortly afterwards.

Taking the victory in advance

In the published text, ETC established the outcome as a fact and wrote: ”For the first time in its term, the Tidö government loses a vote in parliament.”

The article also described how a majority would have already voted down the proposal for stricter citizenship requirements, which turned out to be incorrect after the final vote.

The article also included an interview with the Green Party Annika Hirvonen, who expressed clear certainty of victory in advance.

- It is absolutely huge, she said in the article, in which she also stated that she had been joined by ”the whole opposition and six of the political savages”.

Among the designated ”savages” were the former SD members Katja Nyberg and Elsa Widding, which was highlighted in the article as crucial to defeating the government's proposal. This has led to speculation about a red-green campaign to get Widding and Nyberg on board, both of whom have been roundly criticized for voting against

”Embarrassing, but a mistake”

After the article was highlighted and criticized, ETC's editor-in-chief Andreas Gustavsson provided an explanation for the publication. He stated that the editors had prepared articles for different possible outcomes, but that the wrong version was published by mistake.

”An article that should not have gone out went out anyway. Human error, the article was deleted when it was discovered”, he writes in a comment to Quarter.

The explanation is that the editors had finished texts ready before the voting ended, which is common for major news events but rarely visible to the public.

Raising questions

At the same time, the incident has raised questions about how far the preparations went and what information was used as a basis for the content. The article specifically identified the members who would decide the vote, including Katja Nyberg and Elsa Widding, who were expected to vote with the opposition.

At the same time, the timeline shows how quickly the situation changed in the Riksdag. What was described in ETC's publication as a ”historic loss” instead became a narrow victory for the government side, which meant that the article quickly disappeared when the real outcome became clear.

The conclusion after the drama is clear: while the parliament was still voting, ETC had already finished writing the final result - but reality wanted something else.