Sweden: Who is entering the battle of Sunday’s elections – The three protagonists

Outgoing prime minister Magdalena Anderson, opposition leader Ulf Kristerson and far-right leader Jimmy Okeson are the three main protagonists which are contested on Sunday’s election in Sweden. According to the latest opinion polls, the far-right Sweden Democrats of 43-year-old Jimmy Akesson are gaining ground in the right-wing space, just before the polls. It is worth noting that the issues that seem to dominate the pre-election agenda in Sweden are immigration, crime and the cost of living, but not the country’s promoted integration into NATO.

The three protagonists of the electoral contest, as reported by the Athens News Agency, are:

Magda Anderson, the “bulldozer”

First female head of government in one of the most feminist countries of the world, 55-year-old Magdalena Andersson took over as prime minister in November with the aim of regrouping her political camp ahead of the election and managing Sweden’s historic candidacy for joining NATO. Weakened after seven years of rule under her predecessor Stefan Lleven, Sweden’s Social Democrats have bounced back.

ex girlfriend swimming champion married and a mother of two, she took on the premiership with the nickname “bulldozer”, which describes her direct, even blunt, ways as finance minister (2014-2021), seen as an aberration in a country where consensus-seeking is the norm. Reluctant at first, she then changed course, choosing to apply for Sweden’s NATO membership a few weeks after Moscow invaded Ukraine, breaking the social democrats’ historic line of two centuries of Swedish participation in the Non-Aligned camp.

“He managed to maintain, and indeed to strengthen the position of the party and voter support,” observes political scientist Ulf Bjerreld.

Her support for the welfare state, one of the social democratic totems, is a classic position, but she has continued to harden the party’s line on immigration. “Integration has failed,” he said after riots between immigrants and police in April. In case of defeat, she will be the prime minister with the shortest term since 1936.

On the international scene, the thorniest file will be the negotiation with Turkey, which is threatening to block Sweden’s accession to NATO accusing the country of being a haven for Kurdish “terrorists”.

Ulf Christerson, the conservative who reached out to the far right

He looks to the prime ministership at the price of an approach with the extreme right, unprecedented in Sweden: Ulf Kristerson, 58 years oldhe needs to show that the new historic alliance will be beneficial for his camp.

Small round glasses and a featherweight body type, the leader of the conservative Moderate party is making his second bid to become prime minister. After the previous inconclusive 2018 election contest, the former gymnast had failed in the acrobatic exercise of simultaneously securing the electoral support of the nationalist Sweden Democrats (SD) and the small parties of the centre-right, who are also historical allies of the Moderates.

But a year later, he declared himself ready for the first time to discuss with the Sweden Democrats, and since then the approach has been solidified.

His critics, such as Center Party leader Annie Leof, accuse him of making a Faustian bargain, and decry his reneging on promises never to work with the far-right. Graduated in Economics and fan of Tintin, this big supporter of welfare cuts is married and the father of three adopted children in China.

Analysts believe that the second failure in his bid for the prime ministership will cost him the leadership of the party.

Jimi Okeson, the nationalist who embellished the Swedish far right

In the 17 years he has led the Democrats of Sweden, Mr Jimmy Ocean turned the Swedish far right from a pariah in the Swedish political landscape into a heavyweight party that is essential on the right if it wants to govern after Sunday’s election. Hair carefully combed, but diligently sloppy when he removes his tie, the 43-year-old with his husky body and well-trimmed beard cultivates the image of the normal Swede.

Jimi Okeson managed to transform a party that was the successor of the neo-Nazi organization Bevara Sverige Svensk (Let’s keep Sweden Swedish) into a “decent” nationalist party.

“He wants to give the image of the normal person (…) who grills sausages, goes on holiday to the Canaries on a charter flight and talks about ‘the neighbor who lives in a humble house in a small town…'” says Jonas Hinfors, Professor of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. His party attracts conservative voters, but also social democrats, mainly from the working class, and may for the first time join a coalition with the traditional right in Parliament.

In their rapid march into Swedish political affairs, the Sweden Democrats have taken care to embellish their rhetoric, as have other far-right factions in Europe. Out with the controversial digressions, like when Okeson called Muslims “the biggest foreign threat since World War II” or when he suggested leaving the European Union…