That Jimmie Åkesson skips Almedalen shouldn’t be news.
But after 18 years as party leader, it puts an end to speculation about how long Åkesson intends to stay.
Jimmie Åkesson is, without competition, the longest-serving party leader. In 2005, he took over the Sweden Democrats and began a long political journey – from a marginalized alcohol party far out on the right to today’s position as the foundation of the government and Sweden’s second largest party.
When Åkesson now announces that he does not intend to speak at Almedal Week, it should not lead to so many raised eyebrows. It’s a long time until the next election. And Åkesson has ignored this kind of event before. In 2019, he dropped out of Järvaveckan at the last second. And in 2022, Åkesson boycotted the same event, as a protest against conferencer Kakan Hermansson.
But this spring has been surrounded by speculation about how long Jimmie Åkesson intends to stay in his post. He has served longer than most other party leaders in Sweden’s history. The fact that he is now letting SD’s group leader in the Riksdag, Linda Lindberg, manage the Almedal story can be understood as a successor to be tested and possibly trained. Especially when Åkesson talks about the party “needing to profile” the group leader.
Linda Lindberg is relatively new to the Sweden Democrats. She became a member in 2012, a member of the Riksdag in 2018 and took the chair of the women’s union SD-kvinnor in 2019. But she is hardly known in wider circles. And no obvious party leader candidate either.
There are plenty of other profiles in the party who can certainly feel called. The former group leader Henrik Vinge is usually mentioned in this kind of speculation, as is the Riksdag woman Jessica Stegrud and the fiscal spokesperson Oscar Sjöstedt.
The rumor mill probably turns several more times on today’s news about Almedalen. But in the end it boils down to what Jimmie Åkesson wants, can handle and feels like doing. After the election success, he is not questioned in the party. And it might be worth remembering that Åkesson’s 18 years is still a gärdsgård series compared to the Christian Democrats’ Alf Svensson. He sat for 31 years.