Stefan Löfven

His foster father Ture Melander (1927–2003) was a lumberjack and later a factory worker, while his foster mother, Iris Melander (née Söderlund, 1929–2020), worked as an in-home caregiver.

He studied at Sollefteå High School before starting a 48-week welding course at Arbetsmarknadsutbildningen (AMU, Unemployment Career Training) in Kramfors, and it is unclear whether he completed the course.

Löfven later studied social work at Umeå University, but dropped out after a year and a half.

Kjell Stefan Löfven (officially Löfvén; born 21 July 1957) is a Swedish politician who has served as the President of European Socialists since October 2022.

Löfven was born 21 July 1957 in Aspudden, Stockholm, and his father died before he was born.

He was placed in an orphanage before being looked after by a foster family from Sunnersta, Sollefteå, where he grew up.

According to the agreement with this family, his birth mother would regain custody of him when she was able to; however, this did not happen.

After completing his compulsory military service (as a private Munitions Systems specialist conscript) in the Swedish Air Force at the Jämtland Wing (F 4) airbase 1976–77, Löfven began his career in 1978 as a welder at Hägglund & Söner in Örnsköldsvik.

Two years later, he was chosen as the group's union representative, and went on to hold a succession of union posts.

In 1995, he started as an employed ombudsman in the Swedish Metalworkers' Union, working in the areas of contract negotiations and international affairs.

In 2001, he was elected vice-chairman of the Metalworkers' Union; in November 2005 was elected as the first chairman of the newly formed trade union IF Metall.

Löfven has been a member of the Social Democrats since the age of 13 and was active in SSU, the youth league, in his teens.

He was eventually elected as an ombudsman within the Swedish Metalworkers' Union (SMU) and in January 2006, Löfven was elected the first chairman of IF Metall, a new 'super' trade union formed after smaller unions, including the SMU, voted to merge.

Löfven was elected to the executive board of the Social Democrats in 2006, shortly after becoming chairman of trade union IF Metall.

However, the election results at 24.19% was a slightly inferior result than the result in the 2009 European Parliament election; the party's seats in the European Parliament was reduced from six to five and the party's results was the lowest in an election at the national level since universal suffrage was introduced in 1921.

Their election result of 31.0%, up from 30.7%, was slightly better than the result in the 2010 general election, but the result was also the party's second worst result in a general election to the Riksdag since universal suffrage was introduced in 1921.

After the resignation of Håkan Juholt, in January 2012, Löfven was unanimously selected by the executive board of the Social Democratic Party to become the party's new leader.

This made Löfven the Leader of the Opposition, despite the fact that he did not have a seat in the Riksdag at the time.

In January 2012, following the resignation of Håkan Juholt, it was reported that Löfven was being considered as his successor.

On 26 January 2012 the executive board nominated Löfven to become the party's new leader.

On 27 January 2012, Löfven was elected leader in a party-room ballot.

Löfven was confirmed as party leader at the party's bi-annual congress on 4 April 2013.

He previously served as Prime Minister of Sweden from October 2014 to November 2021 and leader of the Social Democratic Party from 2012 to 2021.

After leaving school and completing military service in the Swedish Air Force, Löfven trained as a welder and began employment as a metalworker.

At the same time, he became an active trade unionist.

Löfven led the Social Democrats into the 2014 election.

Despite initial opinion poll leads, the party only gained a single seat; due to the poor performance of the governing Moderate Party which lost 23 seats, Löfven was able to form a minority coalition government with the Green Party.

He was appointed prime minister of Sweden on 3 October 2014.

Dubbed a "political escape artist" and the "Harry Houdini of European politics", Löfven was able to successfully remain as Prime Minister at the helm of historically weak coalition governments in the turbulent Swedish political landscape from 2014.

On 22 August 2021, Löfven announced that he would retire as leader of the Social Democrats at the November party congress, and would then resign as prime minister upon the election of his successor.

In September 2021, it was confirmed that Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson would be the only candidate at the congress to replace Löfven.

Andersson was elected party leader on 4 November.

Löfven officially resigned as prime minister on 10 November 2021, though he continued to lead a caretaker government until his successor took office on 30 November 2021.

Löfven led his party through the 2014 European Parliament election where the Social Democrats retained their position as the largest party from Sweden in the European Parliament.

On 12 July 2014 Löfven wrote a controversial Facebook post in which he argued that Israel has the right to defend itself against Palestinian Hamas, which he accused of attacking Israel during the 2014 Gaza war.

The post received thousands of comments, many of them from critical social democratic voters, and was later removed.

Afterwards, Löfven has claimed that Israel must take responsibility for its disproportionate use of force, but maintained that the country has the right to defend itself.

Löfven led his party through the 2014 general election, which resulted in a hung parliament.

He went on to secure a second term in the aftermath of the inconclusive 2018 election, which saw both main parties suffer losses; after a months-long impasse that set a new record for government formation, Löfven was able to secure abstentions from MPs belonging to the Centre Party, the Left Party and the Liberals, and was re-elected as prime minister by the Riksdag in January 2019.

On 21 June 2021, after the Left Party withdrew their support of the government, Löfven lost a confidence motion in the Riksdag, triggering a brief crisis, which was resolved on 5 July when Löfven announced that talks to reform the government had been successful, and two days later the Riksdag once again confirmed Löfven as prime minister in a vote.