Fredrik Reinfeldt

Fredrik Reinfeldt (born August 4, 1965, Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish politician who was the longest-serving conservative prime minister in the history of Sweden (2006–14).

Though born in Stockholm, Reinfeldt spent part of his early childhood in London, where his father worked as a consultant for Shell Oil Company. The family returned to Sweden in the late 1960s. While completing his compulsory military service, Reinfeldt was elected deputy chair of the Swedish Central Conscripts Council (1985–86). He studied business administration and economics at Stockholm University, where he was a board member for the Swedish National Union of Students before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1990.

In 1991 Reinfeldt was elected to the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament. He held a number of posts on the board of the youth wing of the Moderate Party, including chairman of its executive committee (1992–95). In the wake of the Moderate Party’s 1994 electoral loss, Reinfeldt publicly denounced the leadership and allies of former prime minister and Moderate Party leader Carl Bildt. As a result, Reinfeldt was kept out of significant political posts until 1999, when Bildt ceded party leadership to Bo Lundgren.

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By the time Lundgren resigned in 2002, Reinfeldt was the most likely contender for succession, and in 2003 he was elected leader of the Moderate Party. In addition to emphasizing tax cuts (a party touchstone), Reinfeldt turned his attention toward lessening the Swedish people’s dependence on the welfare state by proposing various reforms, such as reducing jobless benefits, that were designed to lower the unemployment rate. For the 2006 parliamentary election, the Moderate Party formed an alliance with the Christian Democrats, the Liberals, and the Centre Party. It won a majority of seats in the tightly contested race, and Reinfeldt succeeded Göran Persson as prime minister, ending the Social Democrats’ 12 years in power.

During Reinfeldt’s first year in office, the country’s jobless rate fell, and his administration oversaw cuts in both taxes and unemployment benefits. In 2009 he began his six-month term as the rotating president of the European Council, the European Union’s chief decision-making body, and his tenure was widely considered a success. The following year he earned additional praise for his handling of the Swedish economy, which experienced a strong rebound after struggling in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. In the September 2010 election, the Moderate Party captured 30 percent of the vote, though his centre-right coalition fell short of a majority. Reinfeldt subsequently formed a minority government the following month.

In the absence of an absolute majority, Reinfeldt’s coalition government kept a relatively low profile in 2011. It favoured political compromises where necessary, as in the matter of the nature of Swedish participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military efforts to protect the rebels engaged in the overthrow of Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya. After strong demands from the Social Democrat Party, Reinfeldt’s government did not allow its Gripen jet fighters to participate in bombing missions but instead restricted their participation to reconnaissance flights. When unemployment climbed above 7.5% in 2012, the policies of Reinfeldt’s finance minister, Anders Borg, underwent a big change. After having stressed the importance of reducing public spending to generate a surplus in state finances over an economic cycle, the government attempted to stimulate the economy through a series of measures, including a further reduction in the income tax rate.

Meanwhile, the imbalance continued to grow between the more-affluent Swedes and those who lacked jobs and good incomes. In May 2013 the country was shaken by rioting in a number of Swedish cities, most notably in the suburbs of Stockholm, where young militant protesters—many of them from immigrant families—set fire to hundreds of cars. Responding to those developments, the Swedish electorate turned away from Reinfeldt in the September 2014 parliamentary elections, in which his centre-right alliance tallied about 39 percent of the vote, compared with about 13 percent for the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats and some 44 percent for the Red-Green coalition led by the Social Democrats. As Reinfeldt tendered his resignation, Stefan Löfven, leader of the Social Democrats, was poised to form a minority government.

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