Photographic favourites: Sixty picks |
 Campaigning – Sweden: I was observing a large Social Democratic Party campaign meeting in an amusement park in Gothenburg on 25 August 1985 when a party official asked me what I was doing. When I told him I was a New Zealand political science professor, he ushered me up onto the stage. I was just one of four people on the stage: two deaf translators, OIof Palme, and me! Palme had been Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976, and – after six years out of office – became Prime Minister again in 1982, and Palme and his party were re-elected in the September 1985 parliamentary elections. This unique photograph (from my perspective, that is) of a charismatic politician on the campaign trail not only illustrated the openness of Swedish politics, but it also warned of its dangers: Palme was assassinated six months later while he and his wife were walking through the streets of Stockholm. |