Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, opposition Conservative Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson and far-right leader Jimmie Akesson face off as the three main candidates in Sunday’s general election.

Andersson came to power in November 2021 with a goal to breathe new life into the Social Democrats, eventually leading the charge in the nation’s historic NATO bid.

Despite the country’s reputation as one of the most feminists in the world, the 55-year-old is Sweden’s first female prime minister, replacing Stefan Lofven after he retired from politics.

The former swimming champion was Treasury Secretary for seven years and earned the nickname “The Bulldozer” for her outspoken manner, which can mislead some in a country deeply committed to consensus.

Andersson was initially reluctant to join NATO, but decided a few weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, convincing her party to abandon long-standing opposition after two centuries of Swedish military non-alignment.

“She has managed to maintain and even strengthen the party’s position and electoral support,” said political scientist Ulf Bjereld.

Andersson often wears navy blue suits and has her straight blonde hair tucked behind her ears. She fought with the slogan “Sweden can do better”.

She has vowed to defend Swedes’ cherished welfare state and follows the party’s harder stance on immigration.

“The integration failed,” she said in April after young people with a migration background clashed with the police.

At the international level, her most delicate tasks were negotiations with Turkey.

Ankara has threatened to block Sweden’s NATO bid and accused Stockholm of harboring Kurdish “terrorists”.

A first obstacle was cleared in June, but Turkey has yet to ratify Sweden’s membership of the Atlantic Alliance.

If she loses the election, she will become Sweden’s prime minister with the shortest term in office since 1936.

Her main challenger for prime minister, the leader of the conservative Moderate Party, Ulf Kristersson, is hoping to end the Social Democrats’ eight-year tenure.

The 58-year-old is banking on his historic incorporation of the once-outlawed far-right Sweden Democrats into the right wing to pay off and give him the parliamentary majority he needs.

Kristersson, a former gymnast with horn-rimmed glasses and a well-groomed appearance, is making his second attempt at becoming Prime Minister.

After the 2018 elections, he was given the chance to form a government but failed to secure a majority. The moderates and their traditional centre-right allies refused to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats.

By December 2019, Kristersson agreed to hold exploratory talks with the far right and their collaboration has since deepened. The Christian Democrats and, to a lesser extent, the Liberals have followed suit.

His critics, including Center Party leader Annie Loof, have accused him of “sold out” to the far right and recalled his pledge never to do so.

Kristersson defends the connection as “my side of politics”.

Kristersson, a Tintin fan with a degree in economics, wants to introduce a cap on Sweden’s generous welfare payments to give people more incentive to enter the labor market.

A second failure as Prime Minister could mean the end for him as party leader.

In 17 years as party leader, Jimmie Akesson has steered the far-right Sweden Democrats from underdog status to becoming heavyweights whose support is essential if the right-wing bloc is to govern.

With his immaculately coiffed brown hair, glasses and neatly trimmed beard, the casually dressed 43-year-old looks like your average Swede.

That’s natural for someone who has turned an often violent neo-Nazi movement called Keep Sweden Swedish into a nationalist party with a flower as its logo.

“He wants to give the impression that he’s an ordinary guy … who grills sausages, talks normally and takes charter trips to the Canary Islands,” Jonas Hinnfors, a political science professor at the University of Gothenburg, told AFP.

His party, which first entered parliament in 2010 with 5.7 percent of the vote and is now around 20 percent, has attracted voters from both the conservative moderates and the social democrats, particularly working-class men.

The extreme right could be part of a right-wing coalition in parliament for the first time.

Akesson once said Muslims were “the biggest foreign threat since World War II,” and the party had previously campaigned for Sweden to leave the European Union.

But over the years it has tried to tone down its rhetoric and politics, like other nationalist parties in Europe.

Akesson is credited with the meteoric rise of his party, but his success has come at a price.

In 2014, he admitted he was addicted to online gambling and took six months’ sick leave due to burnout.