Kjell-Olof Feldt was a leading Social Democratic politician with close ties to the former party leader Olof Palme. He played a significant role as Social Democratic Minister of Finance for most of the 1980s, but had also held other ministerial posts beforehand.
The Wage Earner Funds
During his political era, he caused a stir when, as a critic of the wage earner funds in 1983, he was caught on camera reciting a poem with the opening lines: "Wage earner funds are bloody crap / but now we've pushed them all the way here". The lines were captured by a press photographer without Feldt's knowledge and created a scandal since, as Minister of Finance, he was supposed to support the S-proposal, not criticize it.
During his time, the term "kanslihushögern" or "Feldt's boys" was coined, referring to the right-wing faction within the Social Democratic Party in the 1980s. This led to an ideological conflict with the LO and its then-chairman Stig Malm, which came to be known as the "War of the Roses".
Feldt's tenure as Minister of Finance ended in 1990, when the government presented a crisis package including a wage freeze – a package that was voted down and led to the S-government's resignation.
Had a Stroke
In 2019, he suffered a stroke that changed his living situation. In an interview with Aftonbladet in the fall of 2022, he told how he had to relearn skills he had previously taken for granted.
I had trouble keeping my balance and now have to use a walker. It took time for me to accept. My eyes and brain don't always cooperate, he said in the interview.
In his rehabilitation process, he decided to start writing about what it's like to live after a stroke, which became the book "Living with a damaged brain", published in the summer of 2022.
Kjell-Olof Feldt was 93 years old.
