Anker Jørgensen

Anker Henrik Jørgensen (13 July 1922 – 20 March 2016) was a Danish politician who served at various times as prime minister and foreign minister of Denmark. Between 1972 and 1982 he led five cabinets as prime minister. Jørgensen was president of the Nordic Council in 1986 and 1991.

He led or represented the Social Democratic Party for well over 30 years. His legacy is ambivalent. Politically, he is considered by many right wing followers to have been largely unsuccessful, having failed to mitigate the impact of the economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. Nonetheless, he is generally respected and even loved throughout Denmark for his personal integrity and down-to-earth personality, often exemplified by his refusal to move into the official prime minister residence Marienborg, preferring to stay with his wife in their small apartment in a working class area of Copenhagen.

While he has been described as not having the image of a strong or visionary leader, during his terms as prime minister he managed to maintain wide support for the Danish welfare state. In 1990, he was chosen to travel to Iraq to negotiate the release of a group of Danish hostages with Saddam Hussein.

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