Ilmar Reepalu

Ilmar Reepalu (born 11 October 1943) is a Swedish Social Democrat politician who was the 17th chairman of the municipal board in Malmö from 1994 to 2013.

After a professional life as an urban planner in Borås and Malmö, he became a municipal commissioner of Malmö in 1985. In opposition from 1985 to 1994, he then served as chairman of the municipal board – a position similar to that of mayor – from the 1994 election until his retirement on 1 July 2013.

During his term as chairman of the municipal board, Reepalu was lauded as being instrumental in the transformation of Malmö from an industrial town in decline towards being a centre of knowledge and modern architecture. He also was criticized strongly during his term, both for a surge in crime in the city, and reportedly antisemitism for comments he made in which he associated attacks on Jews in Malmö with their alleged support for Israel. Ilmar Reepalu was born on 11 October 1943 in Nõva, in then German-occupied Estonia. In August 1944, his family fled the advancing Soviet forces in an open boat, heading towards neutral Sweden. Outside the island of Svenska Högarna their boat capsized, but they were saved by the patrolling Swedish Navy. He and the rest of his family was at first interned at a refugee camp at Medevi Brunn in the Motala Municipality and they could later establish themselves in the town of Motala, where Reepalu grew up.

Reepalu's political life started in 1958, when he as a student at the gymnasium was involved with starting the local branch of Social Democratic Youth League. After serving his draft time as a combat diver in the Coastal Rangers (the Swedish amphibious special forces), he moved to Gothenburg where he took a degree in civil engineering (1968) and trained as an architect (1970), both at Chalmers University of Technology. During his time in Gothenburg, he was also involved in political groups that fought the proposed demolitions in the Haga district of Gothenburg.

From 1970 to 1973, Reepalu was employed by VBB, a building consultant firm. From 1973, he was employed as an urban planner in Malmö, except between 1977 and 1979 when he was the acting head of urban planning in Borås.

Reepalu's stated position was that he did not want to combine political assignments with his career as an urban planner, and when, in 1973, he was offered to sit on Malmö's Town Planning Committee as a Social Democratic representative by the mayor at the time, Nils Yngvesson, he declined.

In 1984, he got his first political assignment, as an alternate member for the health board. The year after, he was employed full-time as a politician, becoming a municipal commissioner and in 1994 he was elected chairman of the municipal board.