The 1994 elections restored Ingvar Carlsson's Social democratic minority government. During the interregnum after the election, the car and passenger ferry &lt;a href="M/S%20Estonia"&gt;M/S Estonia&lt;/a&gt; was lost in the Baltic Sea on September 28, killing 852 people, most Swedish, in one of the worst maritime disasters in modern history. One of the few positive events during the time was Sweden's surprise run at the FIFA World Cup 1994, which earned Team Sweden a bronze medal. Göran Persson was appointed finance minister and saddled with the difficult task of balancing the budget by aggressively cutting social programs and benefits, something most Swedes initially intensely resented, but an achievement for which he eventually came to be respected. After Carlsson's retirement in 1996, Persson replaced him, and remained in power until he lost the 2006 elections.