Two weeks have passed since the site Stop the Press revealed that a man in Fredrick Federley's vicinity is a convicted, and conditionally released, pedophile.

The man has been convicted of repeated rapes of young children.

After the revelation, Federley took sick leave and went underground.

The party leadership made itself inaccessible in the vain hope that the whole thing would blow over.

It did not.

Instead, more and more information was revealed in the media about Fredrick Federley and his connections to the pedophile convicted man.

But from the very beginning, Federley's fate was sealed by politicians, even though neither he nor his party leadership seem to have realized it.

Law and politics are not the same thing

Compared to most other scandals involving politicians, however, this one is partly different.

Fredrick Federley has not himself been suspected of any crime, instead it is a close relative who has been convicted.

But law and politics are not the same thing.

Politics is based on trust beyond what is criminal or not.

When it also comes to repeated rapes of young children, it becomes even more sensitive.

Few other types of crime are so emotionally charged and loathed by an almost total majority of voters.

It thus raises a number of questions when a high-profile politician, possibly a future party leader, has a man convicted of pedophile in his vicinity, also with full knowledge of these crimes.

The fact that Fredrick Federley, who is himself a parent, never even tried to explain how this could come about further aggravated the matter for him.

The situation became unsustainable for the party

The Center Party's party leadership initially commented cautiously on Federley's possible future in the party.

Perhaps it came into play that Federley himself has long been part of the party's inner core.

He has long been a close friend of Annie Lööf and several others at the top of the party.

He has also until today been the second vice chairman of the party and one of its most skilled campaign politicians.

In the end, however, the situation became unsustainable for the party.

Annie Lööf will give her Christmas speech next week and is of course not at all interested in having to answer questions about when Federley will resign.

Thus, the departure took place today, on Friday afternoon, when controversial departures are usually announced.

That he and the party finally came to the conclusion that his situation was unsustainable was thus expected.

The question is rather why the message was delayed, when one could conclude from the beginning that this was exactly how it would end.

Meanwhile, the media attention around this has also damaged the Center Party and its party leadership.