Alfred Petersson

Per Alfred Petersson (as a parliamentarian referred to as Alfred Petersson i Påboda, i.e. "in Påboda", after his home farm, and often just "Påboda") (25 June 1860 – 11 October 1920) was a Swedish politician and minister for agriculture in several cabinets.

Petersson was born into a well-to-do farmer's family in

.

Appointed minister of agriculture in the short-lived coalition cabinet of Christian Lundeberg, formed in 1905 specifically to handle the issue of the dissolution of the union with Norway, he was the first farmer to become a member of the Swedish cabinet and took an active part in the negotiations with Norway.

He was instrumental in the downfall of the liberal cabinet of Karl Staaff in 1906 over the issue of

in place and retained in the Staaff proposition. After the first chamber preferred the Påboda program to Staaff's proposition, the cabinet resigned.

Petersson was offered the premiership by the king, but declined and accepted the ministry of agriculture once more in the cabinet of the conservative leader Arvid Lindman. The new suffrage proposition presented by the Lindman cabinet was based on Petersson's original program, with some changes, was accepted by both chambers in 1907 and finally became law in 1909.

Petersson resigned from the cabinet in 1909 (together with the minister of foreign affairs

, but died on his farm Påboda in October, before actually taking office.

Preceded by Daniel Ekelund

Governor of Stockholm County 1920

Succeeded by Nils Edén

References

• Nordisk familjebok, Vol. 21 (1915), col. 688 f, and Vol. 37 (Supplement, 1925), col. 1039-1040.