Elisabeth Svantesson's Unexpected Technical Glitch at Almedalen

Elisabeth Svantesson was set to make her debut as a speaker at Almedalen. However, she had to improvise during the first few minutes due to a technical glitch.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson skipped Almedalen Week this year due to a scheduling conflict with both a NATO summit and an EU summit. Instead, Deputy Party Leader and Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson had the opportunity to debut as a speaker on the main stage at Almedalen during the Moderates' day on Thursday.

But just a couple of sentences into the speech, Elisabeth Svantesson could be heard quietly mumbling:

– It doesn't work.

The Finance Minister, however, managed to keep her composure and continued the introduction of her speech from memory. The initial mishap was noted, among others, in Svenska Dagbladet's podcast "Politiken."

"Deviated Quite a Bit from the Script"

– She had a bit of a tough start. The cable to the prompter wasn't in. I don't know if it was sabotage or a mistake. She had no prompter for the first five minutes, and before her team realized what was wrong, those minutes felt very long, says journalist Maggie Strömberg in the podcast.

She continues:

– It was clear she had prompter issues. I thought it affected the entire speech because she deviated quite a bit from the script. But apparently, she just got into the flow.

The glitch is confirmed by Elisabeth Svantesson's press secretary Klara Söderberg.

"The screens were completely black for the first few minutes. But quite quickly, it was realized that a cable wasn't properly connected, then they kicked in and worked for the rest of the speech," she writes in a text message.