Here is the translated text:
I still have the ambition that we will genuinely challenge the Social Democrats to be the largest party and get the opportunity to become the 2000s version of social democratic hegemony, says Åkesson.
We are the ones who will have an impact on Swedish politics during this century as they had during the 1900s.
TT: How long can you be a party leader?
I would also like to know. It feels incredibly good right now.
Want to become Prime Minister
In the short term, the goal is to get SD into the government after the election. Åkesson does not hesitate to be both party leader and minister, despite having been on sick leave for burnout in 2014.
I have been doing this for my entire adult life, it characterizes me to a very high degree. I am absolutely prepared to do it.
If the Tidö parties win the election, the ambition is also to take the Prime Minister's post.
Many, probably a majority of our voters, expect us to have those ambitions.
SD has long been around 20 percent in opinion support. There are many percentage points missing to become larger than S.
Long-term plan
TT: What is the long-term plan?
I keep it in a fairly narrow circle. But it also changes as reality changes.
Åkesson points out that the current security and economic uncertainty does not make it easy for parties like SD to grow significantly.
We will build credibility around our ability to take responsibility and govern the country, we will build credibility around our economic policy, he says.
It's not something you do in one term, or even in the 15 years we've been in parliament.
Not with
Even if SD is now part of the political establishment, the party will never be part of the "establishment" that shares values with a "political, cultural, and media elite".
Åkesson admits that SD has had to compromise and adapt to get their proposals through, but the ambition remains to challenge the "structures".
It's not something I will ever do. If the party goes in that direction, then I'm not with it.
Åkesson, for example, wants to cut down on unnecessary state bureaucracy, halve the legislative time, and introduce more political governance of the Swedish inquiry system.
We have no loyalty to the system because we have not been part of it.
More demands
A major SD project going forward will be integration.
We will absolutely challenge the Social Democrats' multicultural integration policy, says Åkesson.
This will define Sweden for a long, long time to come.
This is about making more demands on immigrants than what is already underway.
That Sweden during the 1900s could have social equality and a strong general welfare, according to Åkesson, was because Sweden was a nation-state with a very homogeneous population.
You have to choose. You can't have that kind of society if you simultaneously have a divided heterogeneous population, he says.
Those who live here must adapt to the majority population. It's extremely difficult, yes, but it can be done.
Peter Wallberg/TT
Facts: Åkesson about...
TTTT
...how he celebrated:
The youth association had made labels with me on beer bottles. At my spring speech, I received a small tribute film, it was nice anyway.
We (old SD friends) took a sauna, as one should do nowadays, took a bubble bath, had a fantastic grill buffet, and went on a tip-promenade.
...to hold on for another ten years:
Tage Erlander is not impossible to beat, it was 22 or 23 years or something. No, I rule out nothing in this situation. I am and the party are in a place where we want to be, and I feel that when it changes, I will announce it.
...how he manages to cope:
You understand what is important when you've been around for a while. You don't need to take every meeting all the time. You don't need to always travel to a meeting.
You learn to recover, I feel that I've become quite good at it.
he is motivated to after an election loss:
I'll answer that then.
...what he would have worked with if he wasn't a party leader:
I wanted to become a journalist from the start, actually. Today I know that I would want to have some kind of competence. To get to work with something concrete.
I just sit and think a lot all the time, have a lot of ideas and bounce proposals around, and try to reason, but it never gets really finished.
