Kjell-Olof Feldt

Kjell-Olof Feldt is a Swedish Social Democratic politician, born August 18 1931 in Holmsund, since 1974 a part of Umeå Municipality, Västerbottens län. Feldt was Minister of Trade 1970-1975, and assistant Minister of Finance 1975-1976. The Social Democrats lost power in the 1976 elections but after having won the elections of 1982 Feldt was chosen to be full Minister of Finance by Prime Minister Olof Palme.

Under the latter part of the 1980s Feldt and was heavily critizised from within his own party: he and other people at the Department of Finance "Sw. "kanslihushögern" were thought to propagate for a right-wing politics, failing to live up to the traditional ideals of the social democrats. When economic problems mounted in 1990, the rift was high-lighted, and Feldt left office after a fall-out with Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson in February 16. Feldt had been in favour of a tough economic policy in order to meet the oncoming crisis and when his ideas were partly resisted, he decided to leave. [http://www.metall.se/home/da/home.nsf/unid/35C9687D86E2A7EAC1256DAD003318A6] Feldt subsequently left party politics, though he remains a member of the Social Democratic Party. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Feldt has critizised Social Democratic economic policy, both past and present, heavily.

Feldt was the son of a single mother, Irma, b. Jonsson, who had to send young Kjell-Olof to live with his grandfather's sister. The family was working class but Kjell-Olof still managed to get admission to enter the University of Uppsala. Since 1970, he is married to Birgitta von Otter.