Kent Härstedt (born 29 January 1965, in

Helsingborg Helsingborg (, , ), is a Urban areas in Sweden, city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Scania County, Scania (Skåne), Sweden. It is the second-largest city in Scania (after Malmö) and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, ninth ...

) is a Swedish

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

of the

Riksdag The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the parliamentary sovereignty, supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportional rep ...

from 1998 to 2018. Actively interested in politics since the age of 16, he was elected to the municipal council of

, where he remained for six years. He worked as political adviser to vice foreign minister Pierre Schori between 1994 and 1996, and as a freelance writer for amongst others ''

Svenska Dagbladet (, "The Swedish Daily News"), abbreviated SvD, is a daily List of Swedish newspapers, newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden. History and profile The first issue of appeared on 18 December 1884. During the beginning of the 1900s the pap ...

'', ''

Helsingborgs Dagblad (''HD'', lit. "Helsingborg's Daily Paper"), published in Helsingborg in Skåne is the largest (circ. 84,000) newspaper in Swedish outside the metropolitan cities of Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm. History and profile The newspaper was found ...

'', and ''

Arbetarbladet ''Arbetarbladet'' ('The Workers' Newspaper') is a social democratic newspaper published in Gävle, Sweden. History and profile The first issue of ''Arbetarbladet'' was published on 14 March 1902. The paper is published in tabloid format. Fredr ...

''. In 1998 he was elected to the Riksdag and remained until 2018. In 2004 and 2005, he was also alcohol commissioner for the Swedish government. Härstedt is the elected vice President of the

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly The Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE (OSCE PA) is an institution of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental o ...

2014–2017. At the election to Ukraine's parliament on 26 October 2014, Härstedt was the special coordinator for the

OSCE The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the pr ...

observer mission. Härstedt was the OSCE special coordinator in the presidential elections in Belarus 2015 and in the parliamentary elections on 26 October 2016. He is since 2015 the chaIr of the OSCE PAs ad hoc working group on Belarus. Since 2017 Härstedt is chairman of Forum Syd, the largest Swedish NGO in support of civil society. Between 1999 and 2005, he was the chairman of the Swedish branch of

UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...

. Between 2009 and 2011 Härstedt was the president of the Swedish Judo Federation. Härstedt holds a black belt in Judo. Between January 2022 and January 2023, Härstedt was Sweden's ambassador to Singapore. Härstedt is a survivor of the disaster in September 1994.

References

External links

Riksdagen: Kent Härstedt (s)

Kent Härstedt – www.socialdemokraterna.se

Kent Härstedt
(personal homepage) People from Helsingborg 1965 births Living people Members of the Riksdag from the Social Democrats Members of the Riksdag 2002–2006 Shipwreck survivors Ambassadors of Sweden to Singapore {{Sweden-SocialDemocratic-politician-stub