RTL Today – “Integration has failed”: Three main rivals meet in Sweden’s tight election race
Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, opposition leader of the conservative Moderates Ulf Kristersson and far-right leader Jimmie Åkesson meet the three main candidates in Sunday’s parliamentary election.
– ‘Bulldozer’ prime minister vying to keep the left in power –
Andersson came to power in November 2021 with the aim of breathing new life into the Social Democrats and ended up spearheading the nation’s historic NATO membership application.
Sweden’s first female prime minister despite the country’s reputation as one of the most feminist in the world, the 55-year-old replaced Stefan Lofven after he retired from politics.
The former swimming champion served as finance minister for seven years and was nicknamed “The Bulldozer” for his blunt manner, which can rub some the wrong way in a country deeply attached to consensus.
Initially hesitant to join NATO, Andersson decided weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, convincing her party to abandon its longstanding opposition after two centuries of Swedish military non-alignment.
– She has managed to maintain, and even strengthen, the party’s position and voter support, says political scientist Ulf Bjereld.
Often dressed in navy blue suits with his straight blonde hair tucked behind his ears, Andersson has campaigned with the slogan “Sweden can do better”.
She has promised to defend the Swedes’ cherished welfare state and pushed the party’s stricter approach to immigration.
“Integration has failed,” she said in April after immigrant youths clashed with police.
On the international stage, her most difficult task has been negotiating with Turkey.
Ankara has threatened to block Sweden’s NATO application and accuses Stockholm of harboring Kurdish “terrorists”.
A first hurdle was lifted in June, but Turkey has not yet ratified Sweden’s membership in the Atlanta Alliance.
If she loses the election, she will be Sweden’s shortest-serving prime minister since 1936.
– The conservatives welcome the extreme right –
Her main contender for the post of prime minister, conservative Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson hopes to end the Social Democrats’ eight years in power.
The 58-year-old is betting that his historic welcome of the once-pariah far-right Sweden Democrats on the far right will pay off and give him the majority he needs in parliament.
Kristersson is a former gymnast with horn-rimmed glasses and a classy look and is making his second attempt to become prime minister.
After the 2018 election, he was given the chance to form a government but failed to secure a majority. The moderates and their traditional centre-right allies refused to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats, who were then considered political “pariahs”.
In December 2019, Kristersson agreed to hold preparatory talks with the extreme right. Their cooperation has deepened since then and the Christian Democrats and, albeit to a lesser extent, the Liberals have followed suit.
His critics, including Center Party leader Annie Loof, have since accused him of “selling out” to the far right, recalling his promises never to do so.
Kristersson defends the bond as “my side of politics”.
Kristersson, who is a Tintin fan with an economics degree, wants to introduce a cap on Sweden’s generous social benefits to give people more incentive to enter the labor market.
A second failure to become prime minister could spell the end for him as party leader.
– Nationalist Åkesson leads the extreme right in from the cold –
In 17 years as party leader, Jimmie Åkesson has steered the far-right Sweden Democrats from pariah status to heavyweights whose support is indispensable if the right-wing bloc wants to govern.
With his impeccably cut brown hair, glasses and neatly trimmed beard, the casually dressed 43-year-old looks like your average Swede.
That’s par for the course for someone who turned an often violent neo-Nazi movement known as “Keep Sweden Swedish” into a nationalist party with a flower as its logo.
– He wants to give the impression that he is a completely ordinary guy … who grills sausages, talks normally and goes on charter trips to the Canary Islands, says Jonas Hinnfors, professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg, to AFP.
His party, which first entered parliament in 2010 with 5.7 percent of the vote and now polls around 20 percent, has drawn voters from both the conservative Moderates and the Social Democrats, especially among working-class men.
The extreme right could for the first time be part of a right-wing coalition in parliament.
Akesson once said that Muslims were “the biggest foreign threat since World War II” and that the party previously lobbied for Sweden to leave the EU.
But the party has over the years tried to tone down its rhetoric and its politics, like other nationalist parties in Europe.
Akesson has been credited with his party’s rapid rise, but his success has come at a price.
In 2014, he admitted to being addicted to online gambling and took a six-month sick leave for burnout.