• Far-right demo disrupted in Sweden
• Sweden prepares for historic general election

Sweden's far-right is set to make history after Sunday's general elections by entering parliament for the first time and could even play kingmaker in a narrowly split ballot, according to forecasts.

"We want to be kingmaker to make other parties adopt our policy," especially on immigration, the leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats Jimmie Aakesson told AFP.

Poll surveys have suggested the party is set to reach -- and exceed -- the 4.0 percent of votes required to enter parliament.

Surveys have also signaled a tight race between the exiting centre-right government and the leftwing opposition, handing the Sweden Democrats a key position.

Both blocs have meanwhile insisted they will never collaborate with the far-right party.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, at the head of the centre-right coalition, has said it would be "much more difficult to govern Sweden" with the anti-immigration party in parliament.

"We won't touch them with pliers," he said in a recent televised debate.

If he wins the most votes but fails to get a majority in parliament, the prime minister said he would lead a minority government and collaborate with the left when needed.

The left-wing opposition has on the other hand repeatedly said Sweden needs a majority government to avoid being under the thumb of the far-right.

Opposition leader Mona Sahlin says that if needed, she would offer ministries to parties from the centre-right bloc.

Aakesson is meanwhile savouring an anticipated victory.

"Just being in parliament we will scare them and force them" to think twice about their views, he said.

"They won't be afraid of me, but they will be scared of losing votes in the next elections. They will have to adapt" to our positions, said the slender 31-year-old.

Anders Hellstroem, a political scientist at the University of Malmoe, said Aakesson "is not the typical charismatic leader."

Hellstroem, a specialist of neo-nationalism in Scandianvia, says Aakesson, along with three close advisors, "are leading the ideological development of (the party) from extremism to populism."

The Sweden Democrats is trying to distance itself from the "Keep Sweden Swedish" movement it emerged from.

A local Sweden Democrat functionary was for instance pressured to quit after it was revealed he had published a racist comment on his blog.

The push for respectability has worked, analysts say, pointing to the party's swelling popularity since it scored only 0.37 percent of votes in 1998.

In 2002, it took 1.4 percent of the vote, and 2.9 percent in 2006.

Aakesson expects to score five to eight percent on Sunday.

He is quick to point out the Sweden Democrats "were never" a Nazi Party.

"We have had individuals," with Nazi sympathies, he concedes, "but not anymore. We had that problem 15 or 20 years ago."

Political scientist Hellstroem said Sweden Democrats is now "no longer a party of skinheads, but a party of bald-headed men."

Immigration and its alleged links to criminality remain the party's favorite theme, in a country where 19 percent of the population is born abroad or has immigrant parents and the number of newcomers went from 65,000 in 2005 to 102,000 in 2010.

The party's campaign film reveals its true colours, said Sofia Nerbrand of the Bertil Ohlin Institute think tank.

The Sweden Democrat party "has tried to build an image of respectable party. It was surprising and revealing that their famous campaign ad was so distasteful and terrible," she recently wrote in the Svenska Dagbladet daily.

The commercial, which was modified after a private network refused to air the original, showed a race in the dark between an elderly woman and a group of women in burqas pushing prams.

The slogan promised to safeguard pension funding at the expense of immigration.