Ali Esbati

Ali Esbati (born 12 September 1976) is an Iranian-Swedish politician of the Left Party, member of the Riksdag and economist, and was the chairman of Young Left from 2001 to 2004. He is also the economic spokesperson for the Left Party since February 2022. He became famous for his blogging; his blog Esbatis kommentarer was at one time one of the most popular Swedish political blogs.

Esbati previously lived in Norway, where he held several jobs within the left-wing political sphere. After resigning from his position as the debate and opinion editor of the newspaper Klassekampen, he worked as managing director at the think tank Manifest. He is also a common contributor to several Swedish and Norwegian magazines. Esbati has also been published in a number of books.

Biography
Esbati was born in Teheran, Iran, and came to Sweden in 1985 with his mother and a younger brother; his father arrived six months later. He grew up in the suburb Tensta, north of Stockholm, and joined Young Left in 1990. After primary school, he attended high school in Tensta and another one, specialized in mathematics, in Danderyd. After graduation he began studying at the Stockholm School of Economics. In 1999–2000 he completed his military service at Televapenkompaniet in Uppland, where he was also trained in Russian. He is a self-proclaimed atheist.

Utøya shooting
Esbati was invited to host a lecture at the summer camp of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League on Utøya outside Oslo 22 July 2011. There he became a witness of the shooting of 69 people by the lone gunman Anders Behring Breivik, most of them young members of the League. Esbati told afterwards that he saw how several people were killed, but managed to survive the tragedy by hiding in the surrounding woods and water.

Personal
Esbati previously lived with journalist and former Red Youth leader Marte Michelet. The couple has a daughter together.

Political career
Esbati has previously served in several internal offices within both Young Left and the Left Party.

In 2010 he ran as a candidate for the Riksdag on the list for Stockholm Municipality and was elected as the first deputy. In 2013 he served as a replacement for Josefin Brink.

In 2014 he again appeared on the Stockholm list, and was elected as a regular member. He has since been re-elected in both the 2018 and 2022 elections.

In February 2022 he was chosen as the new economic spokesperson for the Left Party, succeeding Ulla Andersson.