 Still not leading a party with a majority of the seats in the parliament, Göran Persson relied on parliamentary support from the Centre Party when outlining his politics.He launched a series of criticized cut-back programs, defending them in a famous speech to the parliament starting with the expression "One who is in debt is not free".He did not manage to convince the voters however and the 1998 general election became a huge setback for the Social Democratic Party, now supported by only 36,4 percent of the voters.