Persson, Göran (1949- )

Swedish politician, centre-left prime minister 1996-2006. First elected to parliament in 1979, he was finance minister 1994-96 and became leader of the Social Democratic Labour Party (SAP) and prime minister in 1996. Through tax and budget cuts he revived the economy, but at the price of a short-term rise in unemployment which lost the SAP support in the 1998 general election. During his second term, he supported the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. But in his third term, after the 2002 general election, he criticized the 2003 US invasion of Iraq because it did not have UN backing. The SAP lost the 2006 general election and he retired as party leader in 2007.

Persson was born into a working-class family in Vingaker. He studied social science at Orebro University but left before graduating. Active in the Swedish Democratic Youth League in the early 1970s, he entered parliament at the age of 30. After serving as finance minister 1994-96, he succeeded Ingvar Carlsson as prime minister in March 1996, promising to revive the economy with harsh but realistic policies.