In 17 years at the head of the Sweden Democrats (SD), Jimmy Åkesson has transformed the far-right party from an outcast on Sweden’s political landscape into a formidable force that the right must rule after Sunday’s parliamentary elections, writes AFP.

The 43-year-old dark-haired man with a strong build became the main winner of this ultra-stereotypical election and cultivates the image of a “normal Swede”.

He has a political line that has turned the party, which was the heir to the neo-Nazi group Bevara Sverige Svensk (Keep Sweden Swedish), into a sane nationalist with a flashy logo.

“He wants to create the image of an ordinary person (…) who grills sausages, goes on a charter flight to the Canary Islands and talks in an ordinary way”, this “neighbor who lives in an accessible area. housing in a small town,” Jonas Hinnfors, professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg, told AFP.

Jimmy Okesson was born in Selvesborg, a middle-class town of 9,000 in southern Sweden.

Ökesson entered politics as a teenager and joined the party in the 1990s after a disappointing stint in Sweden’s main right-wing party, the Moderates, and became its leader in 2005.

Under the leadership of this lover of thrillers and pizza with fries, SD underwent an identity change in both form and substance.

In 2006, the party adopted a new emblem, a peaceful blue anemone with a yellow heart, the two national colors of Sweden, instead of the much more aggressive torch.

At the same time, the party tries to distance itself from racist and violent groups and demonstrates a policy of “zero tolerance” for racism.

An appearance condemned by his critics: In August, a survey by the Swedish research company Acta Publica concluded that 289 politicians in Sweden’s parliamentary parties had been involved in racist or Nazi-like behavior or activities, the vast majority (214) in the Sweden Democrats.

Controversy about the party’s many black sheep has not abated, but growth has been rapid: 5.7% and top MPs in 2010, 12.9% and the third party in 2014 and 17.5% in 2018.

Viking past

Sweden’s high level of immigration helps move the country, which took in nearly 250,000 asylum seekers between 2014 and 2015, more than any other European country against its population of around 10 million.

In early September, SD released a video with the Trumpian title “Sweden Must Be Good Again,” an idealized ode to the Swedish people that evokes a past of Vikings and mythological elves.

His party attracts conservative but also social democratic voters, especially from the working class.

“I think (our success) is because people don’t feel that other parties take their situation seriously,” he told AFP at a campaign meeting in Stockholm in August.

Despite this demonstration, the Sweden Democrats added water to the wine, like other nationalist parties in Europe, analysts note.

Gone are controversial phrases, such as when Jimmy Okesson called Muslims “the greatest external threat since World War II.”