Leadership
Leader
Deputy Leaders
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Foreign relations
During a visit to Moscow in 2018, party leader Gustav Kasselstrand attended a conference to establish connections with other nationalist parties in Europe. That same year, Mikael Jansson met with close contacts to president Bashar al-Assad during a visit to Syria.
In July 2022, several representatives from Alternative for Sweden, including Anders Feymark, travelled to Hungary to meet officials from the Hungarian party Our Homeland Movement, a party described as a "sister party" to Alternative for Sweden. Representatives from Alternative for Germany and Forum for Democracy were also present. Our Homeland Movement party leader László Toroczkai, as well as Alternative for Germany's Stefan Korte, both held individual speeches at Alternative for Sweden's election campaign meeting held in Rålambshovsparken in Stockholm on 6 August 2022.
Immigration
In March 2018, Jeff Ahl gave a speech in the Riksdag, stating that hundreds of thousands of people would be deported out of Sweden if Alternative for Sweden gained power. In 2021, the party leader Gustav Kasselstrand indicated that at least one million immigrants would leave the country with Alternative for Sweden's politics, something that, according to the party, would be done mainly by coercive means. The number one million has since been repeated in the party's official communications.
AFS wants to make it a criminal offense to hide illegal immigrants in order to prevent the enforcement of a lawful deportation. The party also writes in its return migration program that all criminal foreigners must be deported automatically.
Equality and LGBTQ issues
Alternative for Sweden is supportive of a ban on same-sex adoption as well as same-sex marriage. The party has described same-sex marriage as a "modern construction intended to commit violence against multi-thousand-year-old traditions". Alternative for Sweden has accused Stockholm Pride of sexualizing minors.
Alternative for Sweden advocates lowering the abortion limit to week 12.
Views on current legislation and political systems
AFS wants to abolish the criminal classification of incitement against ethnic groups, which the party describes in its political program as a rubber clause, meaning that it is too open to interpretation and that it is used inconsistently. The party wants to re-introduce official responsibility and introduce the possibility of impeaching politicians. They want to reduce the number of members in the Riksdag from today's 349 to 149 and for Sweden to leave the EU.
The party also argues for a far-reaching personal election system inspired by Finland's electoral system, partly to reduce the power of the party leaders and partly to prevent new parties from being disadvantaged due to the Swedish system of ballot papers.
Media policy
The party wants to completely abolish press support, which they see as indirect party support for newspapers with political connections. They want to shut down the public service media Sveriges Television, Sveriges Radio and Utbildningsradion in their current form in order to rebuild them "from the ground up with new employees who value traditional journalistic virtues in action and not just in words".
Economic policies
Alternative for Sweden has stated in its program that the party wants to introduce flat tax and uniform VAT.
European Parliament elections and church elections
Alternative for Sweden ran in the 2019 European Parliament elections with Gustav Kasselstrand and Mikael Jansson as top candidates and a Eurosceptic platform. The party received 0.46 percent of the votes in the election.
In March 2020, deputy party chairman William Hahne left the party board. The departure took place after he was criticized for, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, selling mouth guards (at the time a scarce commodity in Sweden) at a premium. At the party's national congress in November 2020, Jessica Ohlson left the board. At the same congress, Mikael Jansson was elected deputy party leader.
The party ran in the church election in the Church of Sweden in 2021. An investigation by Expo showed that several of the party's candidates had connections to National Socialist and far-right groups such as the Nordic Resistance Movement, Det fria Sverige, and Folkets demonstration. One of the party's candidates in the election was Carl Lundström. The party received 1.26 percent of the votes in the church election and three mandates in the church meeting. The election result was described by Kasselstrand as a national breakthrough for the party.
In the spring of 2022, the Sweden Democrats' former defense policy spokesperson Roger Richthoff switched to Alternative for Sweden. The transition took place after an exclusion case was initiated against Richthoff by the Sweden Democrats' party board, due to his dissemination of an anti-Semitic and pro-Russian 'disinformation' video in connection with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Views on Zionism
In 2011, when Gustav Kasselstrand was still leader of SDU, he and William Hahne publicly challenged the parent party's pro-Israel policy in a debate article in Aftonbladet. He argued that SD's pro-Israel policy did not resonate with the youth's views, that a Palestinian state should be recognized and that a nationalist principle should support the nationalism of the Palestinian people.
Given the history, AfS was challenged in Samhällsnytt 2018 to clearly publicize its Israeli policy. The extensive debate article "Alternative for Sweden vs Palestine" requested an explanation: "what is the position of Alternative for Sweden?" I regard an unclear or incomplete answer as Afs taking an anti-Israel stance... I regard two young people writing a provocative newspaper article in 2011 as an attempt to test the pen and nothing more. On the other hand, aspiring to represent the Swedish people and the national movement in the Riksdag House means that the review will be extremely thorough."
Jeff Ahl, one of the main profiles in AfS, gave a strong answer in Samhällsnytt. Alternative for Sweden's official line is to never get involved in any Israel-Palestine conflict. But the answer was not so simple and not entirely rooted in reality. Jeff Ahl described the situation in strong words. Israel is "an issue that is completely irrelevant to Swedish politics".
"Our attitude is simple, we care as little about the Israel/Palestine conflict as we care about the conflict between Somaliland/Somalia - in other words, we do not take anyone's side in complicated conflicts that have nothing to do with Sweden, and we are also not obliged to do so.”
According to Jeff Ahl, Sweden does not share "a community of destiny, geopolitical conditions, history and culture" with Israel. "What Palestinians and Israelis have in common with each other is completely irrelevant," he continued. He concludes by giving his own challenge that one should "please explain why Israel is more important than Sweden".
Anti-masonic views
In a Facebook post dated April 23, 2023, the party leader Kasselstrand expressed strong opinions following an SVT investigation into top politicians who are members of the Freemasons. He stated that no high-ranking politician or minister should be permitted to hold membership or pledge loyalty to secret societies. Kasselstrand wrote:
"If you as a minister belong to such groups (Freemasons), you should have the good judgment to leave them. Top politicians should not have secret loyalties that are above the loyalty to the Swedish people (if they have any at all) - and which also entails the risk of friendly corruption.
Drain the swamp - vote for Alternative for Sweden!"
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