Anker Jørgensen

Who is Anker Jørgensen?

Anker Henrik Jørgensen is a former Danish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. Between 1972 and 1981 he led five cabinets as Prime Minister. He led or represented the Social Democratic Party for well over 30 years. His legacy is ambivalent. Politically he is considered by many to have been largely unsuccessful and 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 in his refusal of moving into the official Prime Minister residence Marienborg, preferring to stay with his wife in their small apartment in a working class area of Copenhagen. He has been described as not having the image of a strong or visionary leader, but through his down-to-earth and earnest demeanor he managed to maintain a wide support for the Danish welfare state in the population. In 1992 he was chosen to travel to Iraq to negotiate the release of a group of Danish hostages with Saddam Hussein, a task which he successfully accomplished.