Åkesson: New government can negotiate budget with us

The Center Party has requested that Ulf Kristersson present this week "a political package" for what he wants to implement as prime minister and with whom. C says at the same time that the party's ultimatum against the Sweden Democrats remains: a future government must not cooperate with SD.

When Jimmie Åkesson met Riksdag journalists on Wednesday, a consistent theme was therefore how SD can influence a government in the next four years. This applies in particular to how the state budget is designed.

Åkesson expects that Kristersson with a minority government will have to seek support in the Riksdag.

- It is not unlikely that we will gain influence based on how the parliamentary situation looks, says the SD leader.

He says that the SD is open to negotiating with all governments that take office, but believes that it will be easier to gain political influence in a bourgeois government, where you already have developed collaborations and contacts.

But do you think you can have influence if the Center Party sits in such a government?

- That is one of the points of our joining the opposition. It is entirely a minority government's responsibility for how they choose to anchor their policies. My door is open.

The SD leader underlines that the meaning of the party going into "full opposition" is to refrain from concluding long-term agreements that one somehow binds oneself to.

Jimmie Åkesson would rather see Ulf Kristersson as prime minister because he believes that an M-led government will stick to the political agreements made in the Tidö collaboration. But there is also a vested interest for SD.

- We see risks in ending up in opposition together with the other blue-yellow parties. We are no longer the biggest and we may not become relevant at all, not least there is a media risk.

He talks about the role of the opposition as a way to break away from bourgeois politics, mainly in economic matters.

- I had not prioritized tax policy in the way that we did in Tidö. The A fund is also such a thing. We will not be as far to the right as we have been in the last term.

According to Åkesson, SD has "had a lot to chew on" in a way that he has not been comfortable with.

- Sometimes I have sounded like a better moderate than the Moderates themselves, he says.

He also mentions that there is a certain frustration in the Sweden Democrats' parliamentary group that within the framework of Tidö they have had to hold back their own policies and proposals.

- There is a feeling that they want to push the Moderates. It can be like a cow lip, he says of the feeling in the group.