Åkesson believes that the party, despite a worse result than in 2022, is still the winner.
"We don't have the full election results yet. But it's clear that we've lost a few percentage points. I still feel that in this election campaign we've been winners," he says, adding:
Because there are so many more people around our country now who no longer find it difficult to say that they are Sweden Democrats, on the contrary, they are proud.
Party secretary Mattias Bäckström Johansson sees the result - where the party is down by almost 3 percentage points - as “very mixed.” SD looks set to lose around one in ten members of parliament.
It is an election where for the first time we are part of a coalition to form a government, says Bäckström Johansson and criticizes the Social Democrats:
They have been intimidated with various things, about twelve SD ministers and so on, and there have been some votes of support.
As the actual results have become clearer, it has become clear that the party is being pushed down as the largest party on the Tidö side, by the Moderates.
"It's important to have ice in your stomach, it could land either way. We may not have a result until Wednesday when the votes from abroad have landed," says SD's second vice-chair Linda Lindberg.
“I didn't think so”
Member of Parliament Rickard Jomshof is disappointed.
"I didn't think it would go this far backwards," he says.
There are core voters who are disappointed with the cooperation, who think we have made too many concessions.
What is most important then, to retain power or how things are going for you as a party?
Right now I think maintaining power is more important. Despite our differences, we have done so much good together within the framework of the Tidö collaboration, says Jomshof.
“Double slap in the face”
The fact that SD has collaborated with the government during the mandate period is described by MP Martin Kinnunen as "a new situation".
"We are also not going to the election to change the government, but to continue with the same government for the most part. It is a big change," he says.
SD's economic policy spokesman Oscar Sjöstedt calls the voter loss and the demotion to the second-largest party on the right a "double slap in the face".
