Kristersson, Akesson and Andersson go into Sunday’s vote with the far right holding the balance of power
STOCKHOLM: Sweden votes on Sunday in a general election, with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, opposition leader Magdalena Andersson of the Social Democrats and far-right leader Jimmie Akesson the three main candidates.
Ulf Kristersson: A gamble with the far right
The 62-year-old former gymnast became prime minister in 2022 after his right-wing coalition reached a deal giving the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats influence over government policy in exchange for their support. “He has a unifying presence on the right. I think people see him as a reliable candidate for prime minister,” Stockholm University political scientist Jan Teorell told AFP.
While the arrangement with the far right secured power for Kristersson’s Moderate Party, it has also hurt the party in opinion polls, Teorell said, noting that it began losing voter support after just a few months. Kristersson had previously vowed never to negotiate with the Sweden Democrats.
A Tintin fan with a degree in economics, Kristersson has as prime minister overseen increased defense spending, strict migration policies and a crackdown on organized crime. He has also been embroiled in several scandals, including scrutiny over a foundation run by his wife, Lutheran priest Birgitta Ed, and the hiring of a childhood friend as national security advisor. Born in the southern city of Lund in 1963, he entered politics as a teenager, taking over the Moderates’ youth wing a few years later, and became party leader in 2017.
Jimmie Akesson: From pariah to heavyweight
As leader of the Sweden Democrats for more than 20 years, Akesson has transformed the far-right party with neo-Nazi roots from a political pariah into a heavyweight contender whose support is key for the right wing to secure power. Since 2022, when the minority right-wing government began ruling with the far right’s support, he has succeeded in imposing his hardline policies on migration and crime. The party entered parliament in 2010 and now has around 20 percent of voter support.
With immigration drastically reduced, the far right’s focus is now on “re-migration”, or incentivizing immigrants to leave Sweden. Born in Solvesborg, a town of 9,000 inhabitants in southern Sweden, Akesson, 47, comes from a middle-class family with an entrepreneur father and a nursing assistant mother, part of the “average Swede” image he is keen to cultivate. A fan of rock music and “pizza with fries”, he has worked hard to normalize the far right.
In late June 2025, the party released a lengthy report on its origins, detailing its past ties with fascist and Nazi organizations and members’ xenophobic and antisemitic views. Akesson apologized on behalf of the party, though he still promotes nationalist ideology. In March, he said in an interview with broadcaster SVT that a practicing Muslim in Sweden could not be Swedish, and in another SVT interview last month he said he wanted to “restore order to Sweden’s demography”. Akesson has set his sights on the post of prime minister in 2030.
Magdalena Andersson: The former prime minister
Andersson, who in 2021-2022 was the first woman to serve as Swedish prime minister, is a hard-nosed technocrat schooled in finance with a reputation for being impatient, blunt and frugal. The 59-year-old is hoping to oust Kristersson with pledges to strengthen the country’s welfare state. She has led the Social Democrats since November 2021, when she took over from Stefan Lofven.
Her no-nonsense and pragmatic attitude appeals to many Swedes, according to Teorell. While she is nicknamed “The Bulldozer” for her direct manner, “she has a way of speaking that many people feel they can trust,” he said. “There are similarities to (former German chancellor Angela) Merkel. I think Merkel has been a bit of a role model for her.”
Andersson served as finance minister for seven years before becoming prime minister. In 10 months in office she guided Sweden through a period of turbulent domestic politics and the Covid pandemic, and led the charge for the country’s historic application to join NATO, before losing the 2022 election to Kristersson.
In this year’s campaign she has vowed to raise taxes to improve healthcare and the welfare system, ban profits at privately run, publicly funded schools, and maintain most of the right-wing government’s hardline policies on crime and immigration. The only daughter of a university professor and a teacher, she studied at the Stockholm School of Economics, with a brief spell at Harvard, before immersing herself in the Social Democratic party, having joined its youth league at 16. She admits she is “miserly by nature”. “I get more excited about saving money than spending it,” she said in a 2026 interview. — AFP