Lennart Daléus

Lennart Daléus (born in Stockholm June 25, 1946) is a Swedish politician, who was the leader of the Swedish Centre Party from 1998 to 2001.

An active campaigner against nuclear power in the Swedish 1980 referendum and a member of the party board since 1986, he was elected a Member of the Swedish Parliament in 1991. He was still relatively unknown when he took over the post from Olof Johansson only a few months prior to the September 1998 Swedish parliamentary election, promting the Centre Party to print election posters with a portrait of Daléus, simply saying "This is Lennart". The voters were not swayed, however, and the Centre Party got only 5.1 percent of the vote, the party's worst result in a parliamentary election since 1914. Still opposing the use of nuclear power, a political success for the Centre Party during Daléus leadership was the closure of Sweden's first nuclear reactor (one of the Barsebäck reactors) in 1999. However, as no rebound in the polls was in sight, Lennart Daléus had to step down as party leader in 2001, succeeded by Maud Olofsson.

Lennart Daléus now works as the general secretary of the Nordic section of Greenpeace. He is no longer member of the Centre Party.