On Saturday, the Sweden Democrats will hold an election kickoff in Upplands Väsby outside Stockholm. During the weekend, the party will, among other things, nail down its election platform.
SD leader Jimmie Åkesson says that SD has "nothing to be ashamed of" in public opinion.
But it doesn't matter. We are part of a team and that team has to win, he says.
He says that in the last election it was uncertain on election night how the election would go and that "every second" until election day therefore counts.
It's actually a bit surreal to stand here barely four years after the last election and talk about how we have a tough election campaign ahead of us and a big deficit to make up for, he says, referring to the Tidö parties' pace of reform.
According to Åkesson, it is "illogical and incomprehensible" that it looks the way it does in the opinion polls.
It is actually completely incomprehensible that any single person in Sweden could want to return to what was before.
But the trend is quite clear. We have a significant deficit to catch up with, and time is running out.
The party has therefore identified some groups where it needs to focus for the rest of the election campaign.
We must spend the remaining months building credibility also in groups where we are weak, he says.
It is about women, people in metropolitan regions and people in areas with high immigrant populations. Among other things, the party therefore wants to target women who work in welfare and "caring and hard-working people in problem areas".
We have to do that if we are to be able to reduce the gap and catch up, Åkesson says.
