How Sweden’s far right went from political to powerbroker | The Far Right News

There is a word in Swedish, “to be taken into the heat” – meaning to be welcomed into the fold. In a world made up of long, dark seasons, the picture shows itself.

Ten years ago, the Sweden Democrats (SD), a far-right anti-immigration party with roots in Sweden’s neo-Nazi movement, was shut out in the cold.

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But in the wake of the 2018 general election, political turmoil has forced right-wing parties to rethink their alliances – and their policies.

Today, the SD is the second largest party in Sweden, providing parliamentary support that keeps the government stable. It is a party that was once ignored by all political parties, which is now very much in love with each other.

From blinds to suits

SD was founded in the 1980s by Nazi sympathizers and was born out of the right-wing, blind-headed group “Keep Sweden Swedish”.

Its first author, Gustaf Ekstrom, was a veteran of the SS, the main organization of Nazi Germany, and other senior members were in the military. violent right-wing movements.

After the 1990s, the SD tried to “clean up their actions” to avoid being seen as neo-Nazis, Morgan Finnsio, a Swedish researcher who studies right-wing movements at the Expo Foundation, told Al Jazeera.

One example they gave was their 2003 acceptance of the “open Swedish” concept, meaning that the Swedish identity is not limited by nature and that assimilation is – theoretically – possible, explained Finnsio.

In the period from 2014 to 2020, the SD also changed its makeup and management, making itself a “restrictive” party, he said.

The SD leadership expelled the party’s branch for “extremism”, expelling some members, albeit disproportionately, and banning them from sharing. far to the right Some media stories, Finnsio said.

It also dropped its bid to leave the European Union and its opposition to NATO membership.

Daphne Halikiopoulou, chair of comparative politics at the University of York in England, told Al Jazeera that the SD has tread the same path as many other European right-wing parties, gradually changing their rhetoric and re-branding as the far-right.

The party, he said, had “cleansed itself of its extremist elements” and reinvented itself with a colorful rose as its logo, not a Viking.

Political involvement

In September 2010, SD crossed the 4% threshold and entered parliament for the first time, winning 20 seats.

After spending years creating a narrative linking immigration, terrorism and national security, the refugee crisis of 2015 gave SD the moment he had been waiting for.

That year, about 1.3 million asylum seekers arrived in Europe. In Sweden alone, 163,000 arrived – the highest annual number in the country’s history and the largest number of people in the EU.

According to SOM Sweden’s annual poll, immigration has become the most important issue for 53 percent of Swedish voters almost overnight.

In the run-up to the 2018 elections, SD gained more money, winning 17.5 percent of the vote and 62 seats – making them the third largest party.

It was during this period that SD, which was considered a “pariah party”, began to gain political acceptance, Zina al-Dewany, a political commentator and press secretary at Aftonbladet, told Al Jazeera.

In symbolic moments, one party after another changed its views between 2018 and 2022, al-Dewany said.

This started with the Christian Democrats (KD) in July 2019 when their leader, Ebba Busch, met SD leader Jimmie Akesson for a face-to-face meal, a moment that became known as the “meat lunch”.

The Moderate Party is about to arrive, with its leader Ulf Kristersson – now the prime minister of Sweden – choosing a traditional Swedish fika, a Swedish coffee break with cinnamon sticks and small talk – with Akesson in his office.

What appeared to be a ban was politically heavy, reflecting the breakdown of the cordon sanitaire and the broken promise Kristersson made to psychiatrist, author and Holocaust survivor Hedi Fried in 2018 that he would not join the SD, which has a history of anti-Semitism.

The Treaty of Tido

Then, in October 2022, the liberals opened the door to the SD, and the four right-wing leaders isolated themselves inside the historic Tido Castle.

There he signed a landmark 62-page agreement – known as the Tido Agreement – to establish Sweden’s current coalition government and implement major reforms on crime and immigration.

The coalition was made, but the Liberals kept the boundaries: They negotiated policies with the SD, but refused to be in the cabinet with them.

One last hug

Then, in May 2026, the last limit was broken when Simona Mohamsson, leader of the Liberals and minister of education and integration, announced that her party would allow the SD to participate in the next government.

Later, on television, Akesson shook hands. Mohamsson embraced him, a moment that shook Swedish politics, in part because of who politicians stand for.

Simona Mohamsson, born in Germany to a Palestinian father and mother from Lebanon, moved to Sweden at the age of eight and is known for her anti-racism and human rights. Earlier in his career, he campaigned against the right and opposed the SD. As recently as October, in an opinion, he said that he does not want SD in the government because he “doesn’t do it”.

Even after announcing it publicly, at an internal group meeting, he admitted that SD was not his first choice: “They have many members who don’t see me as Swedish,” he says, according to a Swedish broadcaster.

Stability of distant thoughts

Since the Tido Agreement, the SD has been included in government decision-making, working as part of the ruling apparatus and as a “shadow government”, al-Dewany explained.

Its influence is particularly visible in the criminal justice system, where it has contributed to stronger sentencing and increased incarceration. It has pushed to lower the age of felony to 13, although after failing to secure parliamentary support, the government settled on 14, a significant drop from the previous level of 15.

The SD revolution has also seen other right-wing parties embrace the party and adopt many of its claims.

Finnsio, the researcher, said that especially the Moderates and KD have adopted “the political narrative that immigrants – and immigrants, especially those who ‘fail to integrate’ – are at the heart of every economic crisis in Sweden”.

“Therefore we find political messages proudly boasting that they brought the so-called ‘asylum immigration’ to the bottom – a speech that was unheard of in Swedish politics before the SD”, he said.

The Moderates for many years have linked the issue of crime – a priority in the government – to immigration, and KD has taken the theme that Sweden’s cultural problems are mainly due to the inability of many people to strongly say “Swedish culture and Christianity” which are opposed to immigration, he said.

Al-Dewany said that as the main parties change the SD, they also change their policies, and put in outsiders. There has also been violence against schoolchildren and a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment, he added.

Integration not integration

The right-wing focus on immigration is a mixed bag – but Tanvir Mansur, a Swedish political journalist and commentator, says that what the term means is the same.

Mansur, who also works on loneliness and socializing in Sweden, demonstrates this point through the workplace.

A person of color, he said, often finds himself – or one of a very small minority – without the same values ​​as his peers.

Discussing summer homes and ski trips on fikas can make them feel like outsiders. And to comply, the pressure is clear: “You have to change the way you speak, to speak in a very clear voice – and then you have to learn these references,” he said.

He sees Mohamsson’s embrace of SD as an example of this – “overpaying” to prove his Swedish identity, “a national mask, just like we would wear a Swedish mask at work”.

It’s a passion that goes back to his family more than politics. After moving from Hamburg to Sweden, his father, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, changed the family name from Mohammed to Mohamsson.

Al-Dewany said that some of the policies pushed by the right-wing government, such as the recent deportation of young people – some of whom have arrived as children and have spent their whole lives in the country – show that they are targeting people who are not “Swedes”.

Mansur argues that the Sweden Democrats are not the beginning of Swedish apartheid, but a symptom of something much older.

Sweden, he explains, participated in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and was home to the State Institute for Racial Biology, which operated from 1922 to 1959 and used craniometry – measuring skulls and body shape – to classify people by race and to approve eugenics.

After World War II, he says, everything to do with race was quietly swept aside, and a new myth of nationalism took its place, which ignored the historical treatment of the Sami, Roma, and Black Swedes.

“We have had such a personal image of Sweden as a humanitarian force,” he said, “when that has not been true.

The upcoming elections

Al-Dewany believes that even conservative voters may feel that the current government has gone too far with its strict immigration policies.

The exodus of young people in particular has sparked public debate, and polls show the left-wing opposition is close to winning the September elections, which could end the SD’s power grab.

But for Mansur, the deeper question is not about one party or one election. He points to Nooshi Dadgostar, the leader of the Left Party, who is from Iran. “I never heard him talk about Iranian culture, or Persian, or his language, or anything,” he said.

“That’s the modern Swedish culture – trying to stay anonymous, trying to be as Swedish as possible,” he said.

“You have to be yourself, no matter who you are – whether it’s your culture or your faith,” he added. “It is not what it should be, to be a citizen or a resident of Sweden.”