The Toblerone Affair (1995)
In October 1995 Expressen revealed that Mona Sahlin — Deputy PM and presumptive SAP successor to Ingvar Carlsson — had used a government credit card for private expenses totalling 53,174 SEK, including two Toblerone bars. The criminal investigation was dropped but Sahlin withdrew her leadership candidacy on 16 October 1995, opening the path for Göran Persson and delaying Sweden's first-female PM by nearly two decades.
The Toblerone affair of October 1995 was the first scandal in the modern Swedish media era to end a prime-ministerial career before it began. Expressen reporter Leif Brännström revealed that Mona Sahlin — Deputy Prime Minister, former Labour Market Minister 1990–1991, and the presumptive SAP successor to Ingvar Carlsson — had used her government credit card for private expenses totalling 53,174 SEK, including a now-iconic purchase of two bars of Toblerone chocolate.
The preliminary criminal investigation was opened and quickly dropped: prosecutors found no offence. The political verdict was harsher. On 13 October Aftonbladet published a consolidated summary; on 14 October a Sifo poll showed 66 percent of voters now saw Sahlin as unsuitable as PM. On 16 October 1995 Sahlin held a press conference, announced a time-out, and withdrew her candidacy.
The affair cleared the path for Göran Persson, who took the SAP chair and prime-ministership in March 1996 and brought with him the strict fiscal-austerity programme — including the NDC pension reform and the överskottsmålet surplus rule — that defined post-crisis Swedish governance. It also delayed the eventual first-female SAP leader (Sahlin returned 2007–2011) and the first-female PM (Magdalena Andersson, 2021) by more than a decade.