Today, the polling stations open for early voting. On September 13, Sweden’s future will be decided. For me, the choice is simple. The Sweden Democrats deserve your vote and mine.

Not just because I’ve been an active SD member since 2006. Not because everything has turned out well. Not because Sweden, in four years, has managed to repair several decades of political insanity. And definitely not because I’m satisfied with everything that has happened.

Anyone who has followed my editorials here on Samnytt knows that I have repeatedly criticized the Tidö Agreement when changes have been too slow. I have criticized the still high immigration, the insanity of granting citizenship, foreign aid, heads of government agencies, and the center-right parties’ inability to fully understand what an existential battle Sweden is in.

But that is exactly why I can also say this with a clear conscience:

Over these four years, the Sweden Democrats have accomplished more to steer Sweden back toward reason than anyone could reasonably have expected from a party that isn’t even in government. That is worth remembering.

The Development is Enormous

When SD demanded tougher sentences, the party was called “extreme.” When SD demanded the deportation of foreign criminals, it was labeled “xenophobic.” When SD demanded anonymous witnesses, it was “legally unsafe.” When SD called for stop-and-search zones, it was “authoritarian.” When SD warned about the consequences of mass immigration, it was called “racism.” When SD warned about Islamization, clan societies, segregation, and imported crime, the party was ideally to be silenced, isolated, and thrown out of decent society.

Then the years went by, and reality proved SD right. The magnitude of the turnaround is almost hard to grasp.

The government has implemented a criminal law overhaul that would have seemed like political science fiction when I myself was in parliament submitting motions on many of these issues.

Since August 1, for example, double penalties now apply as the starting point for crimes linked to criminal networks. Nearly 50 penalty scales have been toughened. Penalties for repeat offenders have been greatly increased, and life sentences can now be used in more cases.

The reduction of sentencing discounts has been pushed back. The penalty system is being reformed. The emphasis is shifting from the perpetrator’s rights to protecting victims and society. Conditional release has become stricter so that more convicts serve a larger portion of their sentences. And the government has moved ahead with lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 14 for serious crimes and drastically reducing the youth discount.

Read those sentences again.

These are ideas that Sweden Democrats were ridiculed, demonized, and smeared over for years. Now they are Swedish law or on their way to become so.

That says something fundamental about which party was right—and which ones were wrong.

Mass Immigration is Being Pushed Back

The same goes for migration. I myself have been one of the harshest critics of how slowly things have progressed. Back in 2023, I wrote that the demographic clock was ticking and demanded much faster measures. I stand by that criticism.

But one must also be able to acknowledge when there’s a real shift.

In 2025, the number of first-time asylum applications dropped to 6,741. The Migration Agency describes this as the lowest level of the 21st century. And in July, only 98 citizenships were granted—a dramatic shift compared to previous years.

In July 2018, for example, more than 3,000 citizenships were granted. In 2019, it was 5,610. The normal level has been between 3,000–5,000. Now, just 98 (!). That is a major success, even if it’s late.

The ‘track change’ has been abolished. Statute of limitation rules have been tightened. Requirements for labor immigration have been raised. Control policies have been toughened. Family reunification rules have been tightened. And now the government is moving forward to abolish permanent asylum-related residence permits.

It’s still not enough. Massive remigration is needed. More deportations. Fewer and revoked citizenships. Much tougher character requirements. A complete reckoning with the parallel society and Islamization created by decades of irresponsible policy.

But the direction is finally different.

This is no longer the politics SD was alone screaming about while seven other parties looked the other way—it is now government policy in Sweden.

Record-Strong Economy

In other areas the course has also been set anew.

Nuclear power has shifted from being something to be phased out to a central part of Swedish energy policy. Bans on new reactors at new sites have been overturned and the state has created a system for financing new nuclear power.

The extreme reduction obligation that drove up Swedish diesel prices has been heavily reduced. Fuel taxes for gasoline and diesel have been lowered compared to previously decided levels.

And the sacred one-percent aid target—this odd Swedish idea that a set share of everything we produce should automatically be sent abroad—has been abolished. The government’s own calculations show savings of tens of billions compared to if the target had remained.

The results are visible. As Samnytt reported recently, after four years with the Tidö Agreement, households now have a record-strong economy with rising real wages, falling interest rates, and real disposable income now at the highest level ever measured.

I would have liked to go further, much further, on some issues. But the question before an election is not whether you can construct a hypothetical party in a hypothetical world. The question is who can actually change Sweden.

Politics is Not a Fantasy World

This brings us to all those small parties that pop up every election and promise doctrinal purity. But they never have to compromise, never have to negotiate a budget, never have to secure 175 mandates for a bill. They never have to deal with troublesome coalition partners.

It’s easy to be perfect when you never have to accomplish anything. You can sit in the stands and demand 100 percent and then condemn those who actually managed to get 70. The problem is that Sweden will not be saved from the grandstand, but with power, mandates, and negotiation.

By turning policy step by step as far as possible in the right direction—and then moving it further next term.

A vote for a party far below the parliamentary threshold may feel good for five minutes. A kind of political middle finger. But then the mandates are counted—and Magdalena Andersson says thank you for the help.

That’s the cold reality.

What’s the Alternative?

This is also the question that every wavering voter must ask. What exactly is the alternative?

A Social Democrat–led government that must keep the Green Party, the Left Party, and probably the Center Party happy? The same political environment that for years denied the problems we are now trying to repair?

Back to politicians who first called SD’s view of reality racist, then admitted the problems ten years late and afterwards presented a watered-down copy, if you believe their false rhetoric, of SD’s policies as their own?

If you want to see Sweden thrown back into political chaos, with communists and anti-Semitic forces close to government, a return to high immigration and growing Islamism, politically enforced “mixing,” milder criminal policies and restored penalty discounts, while rural areas are squeezed, aid grows, taxes rise, and household finances worsen—then it’s the red-green parties you should vote for. And staying home has the same effect.

No thanks. We’ve tried that. We know how that story ends.

SD Was Right

Perhaps this is what matters most to me. We in the Sweden Democrats saw what was happening to Sweden long before it was safe to say so. The party stood there when nearly the entire media, cultural scene, government agencies, and the political establishment pointed fingers.

We did not back down. In election after election. Year after year. Scandal headline after scandal headline.

Exclusion. Hatred. Firings. Demonstrations. Media chases. Families split over politics. People who kept quiet about which party they voted for, afraid of the consequences. Yet SD grew. From a few percent, to parliament, to Sweden’s second largest party.

Into a party whose policies today shape Swedish criminal, migration, and energy policy. It’s a political achievement that’s easy to forget when you’re in the middle of it. I don’t forget it.

Now It Will Be Decided if the Work Continues

And the most important work still remains. The consequences of mass immigration won’t disappear in four years. The Islamization of Sweden won’t disappear in four years. The gang crime built up over decades won’t disappear in four years. Parallel societies won’t disappear in four years.

The politicized state apparatus, the subsidy industry, activist agencies, and the entire left-liberal ecosystem that has grown strong over generations will not be dismantled in four years.

Four years was enough to slow down. The next mandate must be used to reverse course.

That’s why I don’t buy the resignation from people who say “nothing has happened.” It’s simply untrue. The Swedish ship has begun to turn. Now the question is whether it will continue.

It Starts Today

Today, August 26, early voting opens. It runs until election day, September 13. There is no reason to sit at home. No reason to wait for the perfect party. No reason to throw your vote away on a political experiment that has no chance of influencing government. And above all, no reason to hand the country over to the same political forces that created the problems in the first place.

Do you want tougher sentences? Vote for the party that demanded them before they became popular.

Do you want less immigration? Vote for the party that stood alone against mass immigration when almost the entire establishment defended it.

Do you want more deportations? Vote for the party that’s argued for it for decades.

Do you want to stop Islamization and parallel societies? Vote for the party that dares to speak about them.

Do you want to continue restoring a Sweden where the safety, prosperity, and future of Swedish citizens come first?

Then, for me, there is only one reasonable choice.

Sweden Democrats

Not because the work is finished. But because it has finally begun. Not because everything has turned out perfectly. But because Sweden, for the first time in a long time, is moving in the right direction. We have already seen what a few years of real SD influence can do.

Just imagine what would be possible with an even stronger mandate.

So get up from the couch. Bring your ID. Go to the polling station. And give those who have mocked, denied, and destroyed Sweden an election result they will never forget.

September 13 should not be the day when the restoration of Sweden was interrupted. It should be the day it accelerated. Vote Sweden Democrats. Because the job is not done. Because Sweden is worth fighting for.

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