Ahlmark joined the Liberal Youth of Sweden in 1960 and was elected chairman of the organization the same year. He served as chairman of the Liberal Youth until 1962 and as a member of the board of the Liberal People's Party from 1960 to 1978. He was elected a member of the upper house of the Swedish parliament from 1967 to 1969 and as a member of the lower house from 1969 to 1970. Following the unicameral reform in Sweden in 1970/1971, Ahlmark served as a member of the unicameral parliament until 1978. He also served as a member of the Council of Europe from 1971 to 1976, and as deputy chairman of the Martin Luther King Fund from 1968 to 1973. On 7 November 1975, Ahlmark succeeded Gunnar Helén as leader of the Liberal People's Party. from 1975 to 1978. From 1976 to 1978, in the first non-socialist government in Sweden in forty years, Ahlmark served as Minister for Employment and Deputy Prime Minister. On 7 March 1978, Ahlmark retired from party politics due to personal reasons. From 1978 to 1981 he served as chairman of the board of the Swedish Film Institute.
Ahlmark published several political books and many hundreds of articles about politics, literature and international conflicts. During the 1980s he published three books of poetry, one novel and two books of essays. He was a columnist for Expressen, then the largest daily newspaper in Scandinavia, from 1961 to 1995. From 1997 to 2018 he was a columnist for Dagens Nyheter, the largest Swedish morning paper, and a contributor to Göteborgs-Posten. In his writings he accuses the political left in Sweden of being uncritical towards the totalitarian communist regimes especially after 1968. He was a strong supporter of the state of Israel. From 1970 to 1997 he served as deputy chairman of the Sweden–Israel Friendship Association. He co-founded the Swedish Committee Against Antisemitism in 1983 and served as its deputy chairman until 1995. In 1997 he founded the Sweden–Taiwan Friendship Association. Ahlmark served as an advisor to the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity since 1987, and was a member of board of the Geneva-based NGO UN Watch since 1993. In 1994, Ahlmark published the widely debated book Vänstern och tyranniet, which is the major work on Swedish fellow travellers and political pilgrims during the last thirty years. His next work, Det öppna såret, makes a summary of new research regarding democracy and dictatorship respectively in terms of war, genocide/mass murder, and famine. In 1997 this book triggered one of the most heated discussions in recent decades in Sweden about freedom and its enemies. His latest book in the same field was Det är demokratin, dumbom!, published in 2004. Ahlmark supported the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, and was extremely critical of Hans Blix. In an article in The Washington Times, Ahlmark described Blix as politically "weak and easily fooled" and a "wimp".
The Per Ahlmark Foundation
On account of Ahlmark's 70th birthday in 2009, a new foundation called The Per Ahlmark Foundation was established in October 2008 by the Jewish assembly in Stockholm. The stated purpose of the foundation is to "promote scientific research and education in political science, the history of ideas and Jewish history, as well as in economics, all with particular focus on issues concerning democracy and human rights". The foundation is chaired by the Swedish businessman Robert Weil and honorary chairman is the rabbi Michael Melchior.
Personal life
Ahlmark was first married to the journalist Lillemor Melsted in 1965. From 1978 to 1981 he was married to the actress Bibi Andersson. Ahlmark died on 8 June 2018 at the age of 79.
Honors and awards
Defender of Jerusalem Award, Jabotinsky Foundation, 1986
