Everyone looked at the Sweden Democrats with their necks until voting magnet Åkesson took the helm

Jimmy Akesson.Image AFP

Jimmie Åkesson (43), leader of the radical right-wing party Sweden Democrats, has been called the biggest voting magnet in decades since last Sunday. For many voters, the foreman was an important reason to vote Sweden Democrats (SD), according to a voter survey. The SD became Sweden’s second-largest party on Sunday and appears to be gaining government influence for the first time since its inception.

When Åkesson became party leader in 2005, hardly anyone in Sweden knew him. There was little reason to do so: the Sweden Democrats were not yet in parliament and were considered to have no chance for a seat because of their right-wing extremist roots.

Two of the founders had been involved in the Swedish neo-Nazi movement, and although the party dismissed members with neo-Nazi sympathies (and their bomber jackets) in the mid-1990s, it did not lose its errant aura. The established parties wanted nothing to do with the Sweden Democrats.

Distance from bad past

With Åkesson at the helm, the turnaround began. He professionalized the party, according to Swedish journalist and author Pontus Mattsson, who wrote two books about the SD. The first thing Åkesson did was change the party logo from a torch used by many right-wing extremist movements to the much friendlier blue liver flower with a yellow button.

In interviews he also clearly distanced himself from the party’s wrong past. In 2012, he announced a zero-tolerance policy against racism, though the scandals kept coming. Just last week, a local SD candidate had to resign after it was revealed that he had tweeted that it was time to ‘exterminate all Muslims’.

Under Åkesson’s reign there was a recognizable substantive focus: against immigration. His party wants to make an immigration stop, family reunification more difficult and no benefits for asylum seekers without a residence permit. Other themes are crime and segregation, but Åkesson also links these to immigration by saying that immigrants in particular cause these problems.

Criticism of Islam, as with the PVV, is secondary, although he called the migration of Muslims to Sweden in 2009 ‘our biggest foreign threat since the Second World War’. The party was previously in favor of a Swexit, but dropped that idea in 2019.

silent breakthrough

The 2006 elections were a quiet breakthrough. With 3 percent of the vote, the party remained just below the electoral threshold, but it was enough to qualify for government funding. In 2010, the entry into parliament followed, with Åkesson as the party leader.

This was followed by electoral successes in 2014 (12.9 percent of the vote) and 2018 (17.5 percent). And now 20.5 percent, which means that one in five Swedes voted for the SD. The party is especially popular outside the big cities.

Per Jimmie Åkesson grew up in the southern Swedish coastal town of Sölvjesborg. His father owned a flooring business and his mother worked in a nursing home and divorced when he was young, after which he grew up with his mother. At school, he stood out because of the high grades he achieved. In a televised interview, Åkesson once said that his skepticism about immigration started in his youth, when he was pushed off his bicycle by refugee children and called a ‘shit Swede’.

Disappointment

Already in his teens he was politically active. At first he knocked on the door of the youth section of the conservative-liberal moderates, but that ended in disappointment. That’s how he ended up with the SD. He studied political science, law and philosophy in Lund, but never finished it. Before becoming a full-time politician, he worked as a web designer for a while.

Later he was elected to the city council of Sölvesborg and became a member of the SD board. His long political career contributes to his success, according to Mattsson. ‘He is very experienced and has really done little else in his life. He has been talking about the same political topics for thirty years and is experienced, people have gotten used to him.’

Åkesson is seen as a gifted politician, who can communicate well, debates easily and has cleverly portrayed his party as an alternative to the establishment. ‘Not like any other’ was the election slogan this year on the posters with the blue flowers.

What helped, Mattson says, is that other parties have long ignored discussions about immigration and integration. This was no longer the case, especially after the refugee crisis in 2015, when Sweden admitted more than 160,000 Syrian refugees. “They never thought it necessary to argue with the SD, because that was the party that hated foreigners. As a result, they never came up with good arguments for their own immigration policy. She broke that up.’

Man of the People

The party leader prides himself on being a man of the people. He likes pizza and other fast food and reads crime thrillers. The annual SD summer parties, with barbecue, rock ‘n’ roll and beer, are an important party ritual where Åkesson flourishes and performs himself. Like almost every political leader in Sweden, he likes to show off his love for sausage. When ex-Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said goodbye, Åkesson gave him sausage, an extra spicy one.

In the coming period, Åkesson will be entering new territory, namely formation talks for a new Swedish government with the SD as a tolerance partner. Is he slowly being encapsulated there by the establishment or does he manage to retain the role of an outsider to some extent? Time will tell, Mattsson says. “But his demands will be very high.”

3x Jimmie Åkesson

Burnout

After the 2014 election campaign, Åkesson suffered a burnout and spent six months at home. He wrote on Facebook about the causes, including stress, fatigue, extensive travel and “disgraceful media campaign journalism.”

Gamble

In 2014, a Swedish newspaper reported that Åkesson and his girlfriend had gambled 60 thousand euros in a year, more than his net annual salary as a parliamentarian. In a response, the SD foreman called the newspaper’s questions a wake-up call.

Music

Åkesson plays keyboards in the SD rock group Bedårande Barn (‘cute children’). The band can be heard at the annual SD summer parties, among other things.

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