From Pariah to Pillar of Power: The Rise of Sweden’s Far Right

There is a Swedish idiom, “to be let into the warmth,” meaning welcomed into the inner circle. In a country with long, dark winters, the image speaks for itself.

A decade ago, the Sweden Democrats (SD)—a far-right, anti-immigration party with roots in the neo-Nazi movement—were still marginalized. But after the 2018 general election, political gridlock forced center-right parties to rethink their alliances and principles.

Today, SD is Sweden’s second-largest party, providing the parliamentary support that sustains the current government. A party once shunned by every major political force is now deep inside the warmth.

From Skinheads to Suits

SD was founded in the 1980s by Nazi sympathizers from the far-right skinhead movement “Keep Sweden Swedish.” The party’s first auditor, Gustaf Ekstrom, was a veteran of the Waffen SS, a key Nazi organization. Other early executives belonged to violent far-right movements.

From the 1990s onward, SD tried to shed its neo-Nazi image. In 2003, for example, it adopted the concept of “open Swedishness,” arguing that Swedish identity was not biologically exclusive and that assimilation was theoretically possible. Between 2014 and 2020, the party made further cosmetic changes and moderate gestures, rebranding itself as “conservative.”

SD’s leadership expelled its youth wing for “extremism,” removed some members (though inconsistently), and discouraged sharing far-right alternative media content. The party also dropped demands to leave the European Union and reversed its opposition to NATO membership.

Daphne Halikiopoulou, chair of comparative politics at the University of York (UK), says SD followed a path similar to many far-right parties in Europe, gradually shifting rhetoric and repackaging itself as a far-right party on the periphery. It has “cleansed the extremist elements” and rebranded with an innocent flower logo instead of a Viking.

Political Breakthrough

In September 2010, SD crossed the 4% threshold and entered parliament for the first time with 20 seats. After years of building a narrative linking immigration to crime, terrorism, and national security, the 2015 refugee crisis gave SD the moment it had been waiting for.

That year, about 1.3 million asylum seekers arrived in Europe. Sweden alone took in 163,000—the highest number in its history and the highest per capita in the EU. The annual SOM survey showed that immigration became the most important issue for 53% of Swedish voters almost overnight.

By the 2018 election, SD won 17.5% of the vote and 62 seats, becoming the third-largest party. This was when SD—long considered a “pariah party”—began to be welcomed into the mainstream.

In a series of symbolic moves, parties shifted their stance between 2018 and 2022. It started with the Christian Democrats (KD) in July 2019, when leader Ebba Busch met SD leader Jimmie Akesson for a face-to-face meal, dubbed the “meatball lunch.” Next came the Moderate Party, with leader Ulf Kristersson (now Prime Minister) inviting Akesson for a fika coffee in his office. The seemingly trivial settings carried immense political weight, breaking the cordon sanitaire and Kristersson’s 2018 promise to psychologist, author, and Holocaust survivor Hedi Fried that he would never cooperate with SD.

The Tidö Agreement

In October 2022, the Liberals opened the door to SD. Four center-right party leaders locked themselves in the historic Tidö Castle and signed a 62-page contract called the Tidö Agreement, forming the current coalition government and enacting major policy changes on crime and immigration. However, the Liberals maintained a line: they negotiated policy with SD but refused to serve alongside them in an official cabinet.

In May 2026, that final barrier fell when Simona Mohamsson, Liberal leader and Minister for Education and Integration, announced that her party would allow SD to join the government in the future. On live television, Akesson extended his hand for a handshake. Mohamsson hugged him—a political shockwave across Sweden, partly because of who she was.

Mohamsson, born in Germany to a Palestinian-Israeli father and a Lebanese mother, moved to Sweden at age eight and is known for anti-racist activism and social liberalism. She had previously campaigned against the far right and opposed SD. In an internal party meeting, she admitted SD was not her first choice: “They have many members who do not consider me Swedish.”

Mainstreaming Far-Right Ideology

Since the Tidö Agreement, SD has become part of the government’s decision-making process, operating as a “shadow government.” The party’s influence is particularly evident in criminal justice, where it has pushed for harsher sentences and expanded detention. SD advocated lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 13, though the government settled on 14—a significant drop from the previous threshold of 15.

SD’s image makeover has also prompted other center-right parties to echo much of its rhetoric. Researcher Finnsio notes that the Moderates and KD in particular have adopted a “political narrative that migration—and migrants, especially those who ‘failed to integrate’—is at the center of nearly every social and economic problem in Sweden.”

Al-Dewany says that when mainstream parties normalize SD, they also normalize its policies, endangering people with foreign backgrounds. School bullying and anti-Muslim sentiment have increased as a result.

Assimilation, Not Integration

Tanvir Mansur, a Swedish journalist and political commentator, argues that what the right-wing parties really mean when they talk about “integration” is “assimilation.” He illustrates this through the workplace: a person of color is often the only one or one of very few, lacking the same cultural references as colleagues. The pressure to truly fit in means changing the way you speak, adopting a “whiter” accent, and learning those references.

Mansur sees Mohamsson’s hug with SD as an example of “overcompensation” to prove how Swedish she is. Her family has long felt that urge: when they moved from Hamburg to Sweden, her father changed the family name from Mohammed to Mohamsson.

Al-Dewany argues that some government policies, such as deporting young people (some of whom arrived in Sweden as children and have spent most of their lives there), show that the government is directly targeting those “who are not ethnic Swedes.”

Mansur contends that SD is not the source of Swedish racism but a symptom of something much older. Sweden participated in the transatlantic slave trade and had a State Institute for Race Biology, which operated from 1922 to 1959, measuring skulls and physical traits to classify people by race and legitimize eugenics. After World War II, everything related to race was pushed aside, and a new national myth emerged that ignored the historical treatment of the Sami, Roma, and Black Swedes.

“We have a self-image of Sweden as a humanitarian superpower,” Mansur says, “when that is not really true.”

The Upcoming Election

Al-Dewany believes that even voters sympathetic to the right may feel that the current government has gone too far with some harsh immigration policies. The deportation of young people has particularly sparked public backlash. Polls now show that the left-wing opposition is likely to win the September election, ending SD’s formal grip on power.

For Mansur, the deeper question goes beyond one party or one election. He points to Nooshi Dadgostar, leader of the Left Party, who has Iranian roots: “I have never heard her talk about being Iranian, about Persian culture, her language, or anything.” That is part of Swedish culture today—trying not to stand out, trying to be as Swedish as possible. “You should be able to be yourself, no matter who you are—regardless of your cultural background or faith,” he adds. “That should not be what happens when you are a citizen or a person living in Sweden.”