Anders Haglund (Napoleon's World)

Anders Birger Haglund (May 2, 1886 - November 4, 1982) was a Swedish politician who served as President of Sweden from 1944 to 1974, a period of time in which he was also one of the key members of Samlingen (the Gathering), the cabal of Swedish People's Party (SFP) insiders who effectively ran the country. While his powers were constitutionally limited as President compared to Parliament, he was effectively the face of the party to the country and world and served as a shadow foreign and defense minister. A frugal, conservative man who lived a monkish lifestyle out of public compared to his peers in the party, Haglund was largely popular for his charismatic style and was famed for his lengthy, oft-demagogic speeches. Haglund's insistence on Swedish neutrality is widely viewed as having won the day to keep the country out of the Versailles Pact, and he was an early fan of nuclear energy, leading to modern Sweden's low-reliance on fossil fuels. After five straight six year terms, Haglund announced that at 88 he would not seek another term as President and he was succeeded by a Liberal Party candidate in a massive upset, presaging the defeat of the SFP at the polls in 1975, effectively ending the quasi-democratic forty-year stretch of uninterrupted SFP rule. Haglund died in private retirement at the age of 96, having avoided many of the same corruption investigations that plagued his peers in the late 1970s.