Who is Fredrik Reinfeldt (really)?

A friend just reminded me of a longer article I wrote about Sweden’s opposition leader, Fredrik Reinfeldt. It was published in Frihet, the magazine of Social Democratic Youth, and can be found here [in Swedish].

I did a lot of research for the article, and read three books about Fredrik Reinfeldt (and more articles than I can remember). I also spoke to quite a few people and my main impression is that Reinfeldt and his “new” party is a machine with power as the overriding goal. Political convictions and ideas seem to be less important, and can be changed when necessary. And behind the polished-election-machine-surface you will find the same old ideas of the political right, even though they try to soften the hard edges in election years.