Kent Härstedt is a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 social democratic

Swedish Social Democratic Party

The Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party, , contesting elections as 'the Workers' Party – the Social Democrats' , or sometimes referred to just as 'the Social Democrats' and most commonly as Sossarna ; is the oldest and largest political party in Sweden. The party was founded in 1889...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, member of the Riksdag

Parliament of Sweden

The Riksdag is the national legislative assembly of Sweden. The riksdag is a unicameral assembly with 349 members , who are elected on a proportional basis to serve fixed terms of four years...

 since the Swedish general election, 1998

Swedish general election, 1998

-Election results:Here are the results of the general election to the Parliament of Sweden , held on 20 September 1998.← Riksdag election, 1998 →PartyVotes%SeatsEq¹Party leader/Comment...

.

Actively interested in politics since the age of 16, he was elected to the municipal council of Helsingborg

Helsingborg

Helsingborg is a city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 97,122 inhabitants in 2010. Helsingborg is the centre of an area in the Øresund region of about 320,000 inhabitants in north-west Scania, and is Sweden's closest point to Denmark, with the Danish city...

, where he remained for six years. He worked as political adviser to vice foreign minister Pierre Schori

Pierre Schori

Jean - Pierre Olov Schori is a Swedish diplomat of Swiss heritage. For many years he was international secretary in the Swedish Socialdemocratic Party and a close assistant to the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme...

 between 1994 and 1996, and as a freelance writer for amongst others Svenska Dagbladet

Svenska Dagbladet

Svenska Dagbladet is a daily newspaper in Sweden. The first issue appeared on 18 December 1884. Svenska Dagbladet is published in Stockholm and provides coverage of national and international news as well as local coverage of the Greater Stockholm region...

, Helsingborgs Dagblad

Helsingborgs Dagblad

Helsingborgs Dagblad is the largest local newspaper in Swedish, published in Helsingborg in Skåne. It was founded in 1847. In 1892 it became one of the first daily papers in Sweden....

 and Arbetarebladet. In 1998 he was elected to the Riksdag and still remains there. In 2004 and 2005, he was also alcohol commissioner for the Swedish government.

Between 1999 and 2005, he was the chairman of the Swedish branch of UNICEF.

Härstedt is a survivor of the MS Estonia disaster in 1994.

Report as alcohol commissioner

In March 2005, Härstedt – alcohol commissioner on behalf of the Swedish government – in his report Gränslös utmaning – alkoholpolitik i ny tid proposed that the wine- and beer-taxes should be lowered by 30%, and that more resources should be allocated to information and other preventive measures. The report and Härstedt's proposals provoked an angry reaction from Sweden's leading temperance organization, IOGT-NTO

IOGT-NTO

IOGT-NTO is a Swedish temperance movement, the Swedish branch of IOGT International. IOGT-NTO has about 45,000 members. IOGT-NTO has a junior organisation, Junis....

 and its chairman Sven-Olov Carlsson, who claimed that the only effect of lowering taxes was that people would drink more, and that while preventive measures are important they have never had an effect comparable to high prices.

External links

• Riksdagen: Kent Härstedt (s)
• Kent Härstedt – www.socialdemokraterna.se
• Kent Härstedt (personal homepage)