My Swedish citizenship application was granted just a few days before the June 6th deadline – the day Sweden tightened its citizenship laws – earlier this year.
I got my passport on June 23rd (coincidentally the exact ten-year anniversary of Brexit, which was one of the reasons I moved to Scandinavia in the first place), but even despite travelling on my Swedish passport this summer I still felt like a Brit travelling on a Swedish passport rather than a Swede.
That isn't because people haven't been welcoming – I got a high five and a välkommen in i klubben from a parent of one of my daughter's friends, and my friends, family and colleagues all shared their excitement for me the day my application was granted (if you listen to The Local's Sweden in Focus podcast you'll have heard that excitement first-hand!).
It's more that it didn't feel like anything concrete had changed. Sure, I had a shiny new passport, but that mainly just sat in a drawer to be taken out when travelling. I felt pretty Swedish before my application was granted, and didn't feel that much more Swedish afterwards.
That didn't really change until a few weeks ago, when I got a notification on my phone to check my digital mailbox, where I found my Swedish voting card.
After almost seven years living in Sweden, five of them as a journalist covering Swedish politics, I've felt like an outsider looking in, someone affected by decisions made over my head with no power to affect them. Now though, I finally have the right to vote. I found myself staring at my voting card, feeling like they must have made a mistake.
In previous years, the leaflets from political parties that land in my mailbox have mainly been a source of irritation, reminding me that I am not able to vote here, and immediately landing in the recycling without me even reading them. But now, they feel almost special – those are for me? They want my vote?
I still throw them in the recycling – I feel like I know enough about Swedish politics at this point to make my own decisions, and am unlikely to be swayed by a leaflet – but now I appreciate them as a new sign of my Swedishness.
I've also been spending the past few weeks explaining Swedish politics to my six-year-old daughter, who kept asking me about all the adverts on the buses here in Skåne. I explained who the parties in the governing bloc are, who the opposition parties are, and why they have adverts to try to convince people to vote for them.
We walk past an early voting booth on our way home from school, so I took her to vote with me a few days ago and showed her the paper slips in three different colours for the three different elections, explaining that the yellow one chooses the government, the blue one chooses who runs Skåne, where we live, and the white one chooses who runs the city of Malmö.
She has had Swedish citizenship since birth, but it was a special experience to be able to share this with her and explain that in just over ten years' time (or three elections), it will be her turn to stand here and cast her vote. She is no longer the only dual British-Swedish citizen in the family, and that hadn't really sunk in until we went to vote together.
For those of you who are also first-time voters in this election – congratulations! I hope it feels as festive for you as it does for me. And for those of you who are still waiting for your citizenship applications to be granted, or who have had them denied after the transitional rules came in: I'm sorry, and I really hope that I can give you a high five and a välkommen in i klubben next time around.
Election news
The Liberal Party leapt over the 4 percent parliamentary threshold in several polls this week, putting this Sunday's national election very much in play. Play around with our election game and see if you can make a workable government coalition.
We spoke with more first-time voters in Sweden, including Laura Brownrigg from the UK, Vivien Leung from Australia, Karolina Pudlo from Poland, and Warren O'Neill from Ireland,
If this year's Swedish election is about anything, it's about how much money various parties are promising to put in voters' wallets. Here are the tax cuts (and tax increases) promised by the various parties which might affect foreigners in Sweden.
Will the prime minister stay on, resign or get voted out after September 13th? The Local explains what they future might hold.
The Local's Richard Orange wrote up guides to voting in the regional and local elections in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.
The leading Swedish private equity investor Robert Weil launched a counterattack on the Swedish billionaires who came forward to warn of the threat of a left-wing government, accusing them of a "shameful" pandering to right-wing populists.
Immigration news
A Swedish Migration Court ruled that the Migration Agency was right to reject citizenship for an applicant who failed to meet the new eight-year residency requirement, despite him qualifying under the requirements in place when he applied.
Swedish Migration Minister Johan Forssell is considering a second chance for deported Brexit Brits – three years after The Local brought the issue to the government's attention.
This week we also published interviews with the migration spokespeople for the Sweden Democrats and Social Democrats.
In other news
OK, most of the news from this week was about the election, but we did find out that Swedish pupils have never before been as poor in mathematics, reading comprehension and science in any Pisa survey in 25 years, in shock results that present a stark wake-up call.
Have a nice weekend and join us for our live election coverage on Sunday,
Becky Waterton
Editor, The Local Denmark (formerly deputy editor, The Local Sweden)