Rashid Farivar, who was elected as an MP in 2022 and is not standing for reelection, delivered his apology in an opinion piece published in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
"On April 29th, the pairing system broke down when two Sweden Democrat members who had been paired off [out of the vote] participated in the vote," he wrote. "It may have been formally permitted. It was still not right. I can only speak for myself: But as an MP for the Sweden Democrats, I want to say sorry to the Speaker, to the opposition, to our partner parties – and to the Swedish people."
Farivar wrote that he himself had voted against the opposition's counter-motion to add transitional provisions to the new citizenship law, and still believed that exempting the 100,000 affected would have been a mistake.
"I still believe that it was right to vote to reject the opposition's motion," he wrote. "However, the way in which the majority was secured – by having two members from my party who had been paired off participate in the vote despite the pairing agreement that had been reached – was wrong."
If all 349 MPs had been present and voted, he explained, the opposition counter-motion would have passed in the Riksdag, as the Swedish parliament is known.
"It is therefore difficult to reach any conclusion other than that the pairing system was manipulated to achieve a different outcome than that which the actual majority conditions in the Riksdag pointed towards on that particular day," he wrote.
He called on his party colleagues "to reflect self-critically" and to understand that they have a "responsibility to help restore trust between the parties and the members of parliament."
"The Riksdag is a temporary transit point for us members and none of us will sit here forever," he continued. "That is precisely why we must never sacrifice principles, truth or free speech for short-term parliamentary gains."
He said that it would be possible for the Sweden Democrats and the other parties supporting the government to make amends by re-doing the vote on the counter-motion on transitional provisions with the entire parliament present.
"Trust between the parties and between the members has been damaged. It needs to be restored through responsibility and humility from all parties," he said. "It is still possible to repair the damage."
Farivar wrote that the breakdown of the pairing arrangement was not the only aspect of the crisis that concerned him.
He also expressed alarm at the way the Sweden Democrats and Moderate parties had defended the Sweden Democrats' action by arguing that the two MPs who had left the Sweden Democrats should have had to vote with their former party.
This, he wrote, undermined what he called "one of the most important protection mechanisms in the Swedish parliamentary system", that each MP holds his or her mandate personally.
"To me, it is astonishing that so many intellectual voices on the right do not understand that if you water down this principle, you risk watering down our entire parliamentary system, and at the same time weaken the engagement that still exists among a few knowledgeable, capable and responsible politicians."
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