On Wednesday, Ekot reported that the Sweden Democrats do not want the Liberals to be in the government, which is one of the few pieces of information leaked from the ongoing government negotiations between the Moderates, the Sweden Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals.

Kristian Ljungblad, former chief of staff at Annie Lööf who was at the negotiating table when the January agreement was concluded in 2019, cites three reasons above all for information to be leaked during ongoing government negotiations: Pure frustration that things are not moving, a source without influence who has a need for to prove important as well as a conscious strategy from one of the parties at the negotiating table.

The latter makes parties to show that they are serious about a certain issue, according to him.

- And then an external pressure starts to build up and then you actually get through the positions.

So it can be a very good strategy to start leaking things at the right time.

However, one must be very careful about doing it too early, because it means that it creates distrust in the negotiations.

Sometimes there can be a really bad atmosphere around the negotiating table when information is leaked, he says.

- I have witnessed negotiations being paused for several days because someone involved was angry at an anonymous leak.

Does more harm than good

Mikael Sandström, who, among other things, was the Moderates' chief negotiator in the Alliance for eight years, has a different view of how leaks affect this type of negotiations.

Unlike Kristian Ljungblad, he believes that information that is leaked never usually benefits the party that leaked it. 

- It's usually just the opposite.

That it messes with it more than it is of any kind of benefit.

He also says that it is rare that the leak comes directly from the negotiating table.

- I don't know that, but I guess.

But it is often possible to guess where a leak is coming from.

In addition, I have known many times that what the leak says is not true because I myself have sat on first-hand information.