Biography
Alf Svensson was educated as a teacher, and worked as teacher in Swedish and history at a school in Huskvarna from 1963 to 1973.
He was a member of the Christian Democrats from its foundation in 1964, and was one of the founders of its youth wing, Young Christian Democrats, in 1966, and was its chairman from 1970 to 1973. In 1973 he became the leader of the party, after its first leader Birger Ekstedt had died in 1972.
In the 1985 elections, the Christian Democrats, who had so far not won any parliamentary representation, entered into an election alliance with Centre Party. This gave Alf Svensson a seat in parliament, which made him the first Christian Democrat MP, but he was the only person of his party who received a seat, which was a disappoinment for the party. In the 1988 elections, the alliance had been dissolved, and the Christian Democrats failed to get enough votes to enter the parliament on their own. In the 1991 elections, they managed to get into parliament, and Svensson received a ministerial post in the four-party coalition government under Carl Bildt.
In 2004, he left the position as party leader and was succeeded by Göran Hägglund, but stayed in parliament. In 2009 election to the European Parliament, he was elected as MEP, and left the Swedish parliament.
Alf Svensson, whose leadership of the Christian Democrats spanned four decades (1973–2004), is a firm supporter of the European Union and the Economic and Monetary Union, unlike many of his voters who are in general more skeptical to an introduction of the euro.
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