Ideologically, the KD is a centre-right Christian democratic party that during the last few years has shifted to the right and adopted more conservative policies.
[18] According to the party, their five most important policy issues include:[19] KD's platform and policies have been shaped by the tenets of Christian democracy, stewardship, and the shared responsibility between the church and political institutions, the responsibility of solidarity towards fellow human beings and the safeguarding of civil society, permeated with socially and culturally conservative values.
The KD also calls for a socially just but efficient asylum policy in which resources can be allocated to those in need in tandem with faster screening and quicker deportation of those who fail or abuse the asylum claiming processes, as well as increased spending on border patrol police.
[26] Since 2018, the party has pledged a tougher line against immigration and multiculturalism, including opposing the Islamic call to prayer in public spaces.
[30] Defunct Former The party had its roots in a movement against the Swedish government's decision in 1963 to remove religious education from the elementary school syllabus.
The group that had worked in the campaign felt it was a sign that Swedish politics needed a Christian Democratic Party.
In those countries, Christian Democracy represented the mainstream of the social-conservative political forces and was closely tied to majoritarian religious practice.
In Sweden, however, Christian Democracy emerged as a minority grouping amongst the centre-right forces and was tied to minority-religious tendencies in society (particularly among voters associated with the free churches and likeminded Lutherans).
He stated that many people had contacted him about the idea and that the current Swedish political climate was dominated by atheist economic materialism.
During its early years, the KDS was sometimes called the "Air and Water" party because of its strong emphasis on environmental politics.
At that time the Green Party of Sweden did not exist, and thus the Christian Democratic Unity had a unique appeal with its environmentally friendly policies.
After the right-wing bloc lost the 1994 general election, the KDS managed to stay in the Riksdag and had assumed a steady position within Swedish national politics.
The KD has previously held socially conservative views surrounding same sex marriage and in the early 2000s the party was criticized for being opposed to increased rights for homosexuals.
[34] As a member of the Alliance for Sweden, the winning side in the 2006 general election, the Christian Democrats got three minister posts in the Reinfeldt cabinet.
Though Bohlin had run her campaign with a focus on limiting alcohol and outlawing traditional Swedish snuff,[37] Göran Hägglund stated in a speech two weeks after the elections that he wanted to "prohibit the prohibitions" and spoke about the difference between the values of the "people of reality" and the left-wing cultural elite.
Hägglund was criticized for not being controversial enough by MP Ebba Busch,[41] and it was suggested that around a quarter of the party's representatives would like him to resign.
[43] The politics of the Young Christian Democrats have shifted to the right in the past few years,[44] a change that has been attributed to many conservative ex-members of the Moderate Party joining the organization.
[45] Swedish political news magazine Fokus has stated that the conflict on traditional Christian moral questions (abortion, gay rights, stem cell research) is secondary to the conflict between those who want a Christian democratic and centrist party focused on social responsibility in addition to environmental questions, and those who want a traditional right-wing party focusing on populism and economic liberalism.
To create an alternative to the center-left government the KD opened up to cooperation with the Sweden Democrats[48] This move was popular with the voters and during this period the party saw continually increased support in the opinion polls.
[49] This passed after the election when the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter posted an article showing the KD’s MEP Lars Adaktusson voting no to the expansion of abortion rights 22 times while he sat in the European Parliament between 2014 and 2019.
[52] Ahead of the Folk och Försvar conference in 2020 the party proposed a doubling of the Swedish Defence budget so that it would meet the 2% of GDP spending each year.
[55] Their opponents answered these attacks by calling the KD populist - criticising the use of anti-elitist rhetoric and for unhistorical references to a "made up" Swedish heartland.
The election was not a success for the Christian Democrats losing three MP:s. But as a part of the overall center-right coalition that Ebba Busch had been instrumental in creating the party joined the new Kristersson cabinet.
Historically, a large part of its voter base lays among those who belong to evangelical fellowships known in Sweden as free churches (Pentecostals, Methodists, Baptists, etc.)