The final result of the political elections in Sweden could only be defined in the middle of the week, when the votes of residents abroad will be counted. With 94% of the votes counted, the situation still remains in the balance. THE social democrats Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson remain the first party with the 30,5%while on the right i Swedish Democrats (SD)with the 20,7%tear off the moderate by Ulf Kristersson, al 19%, the guide of the conservative block. In the projection on the seats, the center leftgiven an advantage initially, would count at the moment 173 MPs out of 349, against the 176 assigned al center right. In the Swedish Parliament the necessary majority is 175 seats.
As leader of SD, Jimmie Akesson has transformed his party from “pariah” to heavyweight, whose support is now indispensable if the center-right bloc is to rule after Sunday’s elections. With his flawlessly combed brown hair, glasses and neatly trimmed beard, the forty-three-year-old casually dressed looks like an average Swede. This is normal for those who, in 17 years, as party leader, have transformed a far-right movement, known as “Keep Sweden Swedish”, into a nationalist party with a flower logo, now second nationwide.
Akesson grew up in a middle-class family with an entrepreneur father and mother who worked as a nursing assistant in Solvesborg, a city of 9,000 in southern Sweden. It is there, in the small towns and farms of rural Scania, that SD built his stronghold, amid concerns about the nearby city of Malmo, heavily populated by immigrants. Akesson joined the Sweden Democrats in the 1990s after a disappointing teenage stint in the main right-wing party, the Conservative Moderates. After leaving Lund University, he took over the leadership of the SD party in 2005, when voter support was steadily around 1%. The party underwent a profound renewal, replacing the blue and yellow torch logo with an anemone and vowing to shed its racist and violent roots. In 2012 he then announced a “zero tolerance” policy against racism.