Parisa Liljestrand

Parisa Mollagholi Liljestrand (born 15 March 1983) is a Swedish politician for the Moderate Party. She is the Minister for Culture in the Ulf Kristersson cabinet since 18 October 2022.

Biography

When Parisa was four, the family fled Iran after the fall of the Shah and during the Iran-Iraq War. Parisa's father was a pilot in the Iranian armed forces and was able to steal a helicopter and fly his family out of the country in the dark over the mountains. After six months at the refugee center in Surahammar, the family finally ended up in Vallentuna.

Parisa Liljestrand studied to be a teacher at Uppsala University between 2001 and 2007. She was principal in Vaxholm until 2018.

In 2002, she founded the direct democratic party DemoEx, which was represented in the municipal council in Vallentuna between 2002 and 2010. In 2010, she got involved in the Moderate Party instead. After the 2018 election, she became chairwoman of the municipal board in Vallentuna municipality. She has also chaired the municipality's Business and Labor Market committee, Planning and Environment committee and the Children's and Youth committee.

In an article in Svenska Dagbladet in 2016, she said that she "takes every opportunity" to celebrate both Swedish and Iranian holidays. She is for the protection of "the libertarian, the democratic values and independence, not least".

Controversy

Although Liljestrand was appointed Minister of Sami Affairs, in 2023 she refused to meet with the Swedish Sami National Association (Svenska Samernas Riksförbund, SSR), one of the largest Indigenous Sami organisations in Sweden. Leading Sami expressed disappointment, saying it had a negative impact on the Sami community.