Mats Odell

Mats Christer Johannes Odell ( born April 30, 1947 in Värnamo ) is a Swedish politician of the Christian Democrats ( Kristdemokraterna ), who held in the Swedish government between 1991 and 1994 and between 2006 and 2010 several ministerial posts.

Odell studied from 1968 to 1973 at the University of Stockholm economics and began his political career in 1974 as chairman of the Christian Democratic Youth League (until 1981 ). In 1988 he was elected to the Presidium of the Christian Democrats and the 1991 elections, he was able to move in the Reichstag. In bourgeois coalition government, which held office from 1991 to 1994, he held the post of Minister of Communications.

Back in the opposition, he was from 1994 to 2006 economic policy spokesman of his group. Since 2005, Odell was the second deputy chairman of the Christian Democrats; after the resignation of long-time party leader Alf Svensson he applied Göran Hägglund and Maria Larsson next to the chair, but withdrew his application before the election back. In 2006, he was after the election to the Riksdag, and the victory of the bourgeois Alliance for Sweden Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets at the Treasury. In October 2010, he resigned in connection with a major reorganization of the government and was until 2012 Leader of the Christian Democrats in the Reichstag. After a futile attempt to replace party leader Hägglund due to falling poll numbers at the party congress in 2012, Odell, who belongs to the conservative wing of the Christian Democrats was replaced as party leader.