Sweden’s Moderates now say the Sweden Democrats could enter government after the September 2026 election if the four parties behind the Tidö Agreement win a parliamentary majority. The announcement marks the clearest sign yet that Sweden’s centre-right bloc is no longer treating support from the far-right party as an exceptional arrangement, but as the basis for a future coalition government.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, speaking alongside Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson, said the aim is to form a government with all four Tidö parties if voters return the bloc to power. Kristersson added that the Sweden Democrats would in that case hold major influence over policy and could receive important ministerial portfolios, especially in migration and integration.
The Moderate Party drops the last barrier on SD in government
For Swedish politics, the decision is a significant escalation rather than an isolated change. The Moderates had already governed with parliamentary backing from the Sweden Democrats under the Tidö Agreement, which allowed Kristersson’s government to take office after the 2022 election while keeping SD formally outside cabinet.
That arrangement had already broken Sweden’s long-standing cordon sanitaire around the party. But it still preserved one line of separation: the Sweden Democrats could shape policy, but not formally hold ministerial office. Wednesday’s announcement removes that distinction. If the right-wing bloc wins again, the Moderates now say SD should be able to enter government directly.
Kristersson said the four parties had agreed they should be able to “hit the ground running” and form what he described as a strong majority government after the election. Åkesson, for his part, said the key issue for SD was not titles in themselves, but influence proportional to the party’s size.
Liberal and Christian Democrat moves paved the way
The Moderate shift did not happen in isolation. In March, the Liberals abandoned their previous red line against governing with the Sweden Democrats, a move that triggered sharp internal criticism and local defections. That decision became a turning point because the Liberals had long been the most reluctant party inside the Tidö camp when it came to giving SD formal government roles.
The Christian Democrats had already signalled that they did not want rigid red lines in the coalition debate. Party leader Ebba Busch welcomed the Liberal shift and later said that, with both the Liberals and Moderates now giving the green light, the Tidö parties were aligned on governing together if they win the election. In practice, the coalition has moved in stages from tolerated cooperation with SD, to open acceptance of SD as a possible governing party.
The Tidö model is turning into a full coalition project
The Tidö Agreement created the current model of power on the Swedish right: a government led by the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals, with the Sweden Democrats outside cabinet but deeply involved in negotiations and policy priorities. That formula already gave SD substantial leverage over issues such as migration, criminal justice and integration.
The new position suggests that the arrangement is no longer seen as temporary or transitional. Instead, the bloc is presenting itself ahead of the election as a more explicit four-party governing alternative. That is politically significant because Sweden has not had a majority government since 2006, and because the right appears to believe that clearer coalition terms may help reduce uncertainty among voters before the campaign intensifies.
At the same time, the announcement also reflects the growing weight of the Sweden Democrats inside the bloc. SD was the largest party on the right in the 2022 election, yet remained outside government because the other parties were not prepared to let it enter cabinet. That caution has now largely disappeared.
Why the Sweden Democrats remain highly controversial
The decision is likely to sharpen one of the central dividing lines of the Swedish election campaign. The Sweden Democrats are widely described as a far-right and anti-immigration party, and their history continues to shape how both supporters and critics view them. Reuters noted on Wednesday that the party was once politically isolated because of its neo-Nazi and white supremacist roots. In 2025, the party itself apologised for past links to Nazism and antisemitism after a commissioned report detailed extremist connections in its early history.
That history helps explain why the issue of cabinet participation still carries such symbolic and political weight in Sweden, even after several years of cooperation between SD and mainstream conservative parties. For critics, bringing the party into government would mean normalising a movement that emerged from the far right. For supporters of the Tidö bloc, it is presented instead as a logical acknowledgement of parliamentary arithmetic and of SD’s electoral strength.
What the announcement means before Sweden’s September election
Sweden will vote on 13 September 2026, and the new line gives the right-wing bloc a much clearer offer to present to voters: a four-party majority government led by Kristersson, with the Sweden Democrats inside cabinet rather than merely supporting it from outside.
That may help the bloc project unity after weeks of debate over what role SD should play if the right wins again. But it also raises the stakes of the election by making the consequences of a blue-bloc victory more explicit. The campaign is no longer only about whether the Sweden Democrats should influence government policy. It is now also about whether they should exercise that influence from ministerial office.
For Sweden, that is a notable shift in a political system that for years tried to keep the far right at arm’s length. The cordon sanitaire was weakened by the Tidö deal. The Moderates’ new position suggests it may now be gone altogether.
