2nd. November 2022. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen handed her resignation to Queen Margrethe but will continue in a caretaking capacity until a new government is formed. Mette Frederiksen’s announcement comes after a dramatic vote count in which the centre-left bloc that backs her retained its majority by a single seat. The margin was so slender she and her government have resigned in a bid to build a coalition across the political middle.
Hving led the Social Democrats to their best election outcome since 2001, gaining two seats and securing over 27 percent of the vote, Frederiksen enters the negotiations from a position of strength.
“Social democracy had its best election in over 20 years,” Frederiksen said in a speech to campaign supporters early Wednesday. “We are a party for all of Denmark,” she added.
However, producing the broad government that she wishes for, will be difficult.
“This is going to be very, very troublesome. Whether it can be done, we don’t know, but we are trying everything we can”, Frederiksen said on Wednesday.
Frederiksen encouraged the parties not to make ultimatums and to instead try to lean in to each other.
“If it is to be possible, it will require parties that have traditionally sat opposite each other to sit at the same table. If it is to be possible, it will require trust, time and compromise.
“There is no one here who will have all their wishes fulfilled. We wouldn’t get that either, even if we all went into government with each other,” Frederiksen said.
Up until the final moments of the vote count, it appeared as though the left bloc would lose its majority, a scenario which would have made the newly formed centrist Moderates party kingmaker.
But Frederiksen’s photo-finish win scuppered the hopes of former two-time prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who founded the Moderates just months earlier.
The party won more than nine percent of votes and Lokke Rasmussen insisted he wanted to be “the bridge” between the left and right. “The dream lasted only a couple of hours,” daily Jyllands-Posten concluded. “Now, in theory, Mette can do without Lars Lokke,” the newspaper added.
Despite this, the Moderates “will be part of these negotiations” and could even be able to secure cabinet posts if they are willing to “compromise sufficiently”, Rune Stubager, a professor at Aarhus University, told AFP.
“But I don’t think they will because they will then be vulnerable to critique from the right-wing parties,” he said. Frederiksen “may then switch to a plan B, which I think is more realistic” — a coalition government with various parties on the left.
In principle, the Social Democrats are not dependent on the blue bloc and have the option of forming a government with the red bloc alone.
However Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, leader of the biggest right-wing party Venstre, has not completely dismissed co-operations.
“I have a hard time seeing it. But I understand people’s intuitive love for such a central government, because they like it when politicians cooperate. But we don’t have to sit in government together to cooperate.
“You have to make an effort, and that’s what I’m saying, I want to. I want to lean into this. I have entered politics to make a difference. The mandates we still have, however, must have the greatest possible weight”, he said.
While Frederiksen’s government was largely hailed for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the election ended up being triggered by the “mink crisis”.
The affair has embroiled Denmark since the government decided in November 2020 to cull the country’s 15 million minks over fears of a mutated strain of the novel coronavirus.
The decision turned out to be illegal, and the Social Liberal party propping up Frederiksen’s minority government threatened to topple it unless she called early elections to regain voters’ confidence.
The Social Liberals paid a price for the gamble, losing nine of their 16 seats.
Broad consensus for Denmark’s restrictive migration policy left the issue largely absent from the election campaign, but it could resurge in government negotiations.
Advocating a “zero refugee” policy, the Social Democratic government has been working on setting up a centre to house asylum seekers in Rwanda while their applications are processed. The Social Liberal Party is opposed to the plan.
“It will be very difficult for the Social Democrats to turn soft or to the left on immigration, because that has been a very pivotal point in their strategy over the past five, six years,” Stubager said. “So to give up on that would have dramatic consequences for them.”
Danish politics have been heavily influenced by the far-right in recent decades, but three populist parties together won just 14.4 percent of votes and are not expected to play a key role in the upcoming negotiations.
The anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, which until a few years ago hovered above 20 percent, fell to 2.6 percent, its worst result since entering parliament in 1998.
A new party founded by former immigration minister Inger Stojberg, the Denmark Democrats, instead won 8.1 percent giving them 14 seats on a platform of less centralisation, less influence from Europe and fewer immigrants.
Denmark’s election ended with a dramatic last-minute twist that saw a single seat move to the ‘red bloc’ of left-wing parties, giving Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen a left-wing majority that had earlier looked unlikely. Several things are worth considering as the country now braces itself for negotiations to form its next government.
Red bloc win does not necessarily mean red bloc government.
The election result has been reported as a ‘win’ for Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democratic party and the left wing ‘red bloc’ led by her party. It is indeed a victory, and was a dramatic and last-gasp one at that.
You might expect a victory to mean the current government can carry on with Frederiksen as Prime Minister, but that is not the case.
Before the election Frederiksen said her priority would be to form a “broad government” or centre coalition, rather than work with the traditional red bloc of solely left-wing parties.
This means that the current arrangement that props up the government – in which the left-wing parties give the Social Democrats their governing mandate – cannot continue.
In comments after votes were counted Frederiksen said, “it is certain there is no longer a majority behind the government in its current form,” meaning a minority government consisting only of the Social Democrats.
“The Social Democrats campaigned on the basis of a broad government [centre coalition, ed.]. If a majority of parties nominate me as Queen’s investigator, I will see whether this is possible,” she said.
Keeping the above in mind, it is still not impossible that an agreement could eventually be reached between the Social Democrats and other left-wing parties, resulting in a “red-green” government consisting of centre-left and far-left parties (which champion climate causes).
This is not the preferred outcome for Frederiksen.
Senior political editor with broadcaster TV2, Hans Redder noted that there are several potential combinations of parties – involving the centrist Moderates (‘M’), the centre-right Liberals (‘V’) and the centre-left Social Liberals (‘RV’) as well as one with the full ‘red bloc’ – that could give Frederiksen a workable majority.
The Liberals, normally the main opposition party to a red bloc government, are unlikely to govern with Frederiksen, according to an expert.
“There will be negotiations, and the Liberals will come to these negotiations, but they will not last very long,” political scientist Rune Stubager, a professor at Aarhus University, told The Local at a press briefing on Wednesday.
“I don’t think [Liberal leader Jakob Ellemann-Jensen] has any incentives to give concessions and the Prime Minister doesn’t have many incentives either, to give him concessions, because she has the red majority to fall back on,” he said.
Because of Frederiksen’s preference for a central coalition, the Moderates “will be part of negotiations” and could even be able to secure cabinet posts if they are willing to “compromise sufficiently”, Stubager said.
But the situation falls well short of what Moderate leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen had hoped for – and looked on course to gain until late on election night.
Without the overall majority for the red bloc, Løkke Rasmussen could have played either side against each other, competing for his party’s seats and giving him a ‘kingmaker’ role. Frederiksen’s options are improved by the red bloc win because she no longer needs Moderate seats to secure a majority, thereby weakening Rasmussen.
The Moderates may be unable to agree on a government with Frederiksen “because they will then be vulnerable to critique from the right-wing parties,” Stubager said. Frederiksen “may then switch to a plan B, which I think is more realistic” — a coalition government with various parties on the left, he said.
The red bloc majority rests on two seats from representatives elected in Greenland and one in the Faroe Islands. Three of Denmark’s four ‘North Atlantic mandates’ went to the red bloc, as they customarily do, with one (the second Faroese mandate) going to the blue bloc.
As such, it would be the blue bloc – and not the red – which would have a one-seat majority if these seats were not included in the overall count.
“It’s thought-provoking that Danes have said they want the chance of getting another Prime Minister. The North Atlantic must ask itself if it wants to decide who should be Prime Minister in Denmark,” Conservative leader Søren Pape Poulsen said during a debate on Wednesday.
Rasmussen also bemoaned the situation, saying, “if you look at Denmark – not the Kingdom of Denmark, but Denmark – there is not a red majority,” he said during the post-election leaders’ debate in the early hours of Wednesday. One of the incumbent Faroe Islands MPs in Copenhagen, Sjúrður Skaale, wrote earlier this year that he would prefer North Atlantic seats not to be decisive.
Two parties at opposite ends of the political spectrum – climate campaigners The Alternative and national conservatives the Danish People’s Party – both survived the threat of losing parliamentary representation.
Parties must take at 2 percent share of the popular vote to qualify for seats in parliament. Alternative took 3.3 percent and 6 seats, an improvement on their 2019 election result.
The Danish People’s Party, which had 21 percent of the vote in 2015, is now the smallest party in parliament with a 2.6 percent vote share and 5 seats.
Both parties will be relieved not to have fallen under the 2 percent threshold, with polls prior to the election having put them underneath it at varying times.
The high number of parties in parliament – there are now 12, and 14 ran in the election – may be related to the slight drop off in Denmark’s otherwise-high turnout, Stubager said.
“I think this idea of the broad government and also the many parties and the new parties may have confused some voters and really made it more difficult for them and some of them have solved that difficulty by abstaining,” he said.
Denmark’s election ended with a dramatic last-minute twist that saw a single seat move to the ‘red bloc’ of left-wing parties, giving Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen a left-wing majority that had earlier looked unlikely. Several things are worth considering as the country now braces itself for negotiations to form its next government.
The election result has been reported as a ‘win’ for Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democratic party and the left wing ‘red bloc’ led by her party. It is indeed a victory, and was a dramatic and last-gasp one at that.
You might expect a victory to mean the current government can carry on with Frederiksen as Prime Minister, but that is not the case.
Before the election Frederiksen said her priority would be to form a “broad government” or centre coalition, rather than work with the traditional red bloc of solely left-wing parties.
This means that the current arrangement that props up the government – in which the left-wing parties give the Social Democrats their governing mandate – cannot continue.
In comments after votes were counted Frederiksen said, “it is certain there is no longer a majority behind the government in its current form,” meaning a minority government consisting only of the Social Democrats.
“The Social Democrats campaigned on the basis of a broad government [centre coalition, ed.]. If a majority of parties nominate me as Queen’s investigator, I will see whether this is possible,” she said.
Keeping the above in mind, it is still not impossible that an agreement could eventually be reached between the Social Democrats and other left-wing parties, resulting in a “red-green” government consisting of centre-left and far-left parties (which champion climate causes).
Senior political editor with broadcaster TV2, Hans Redder noted that there are several potential combinations of parties – involving the centrist Moderates (‘M’), the centre-right Liberals (‘V’) and the centre-left Social Liberals (‘RV’) as well as one with the full ‘red bloc’ – that could give Frederiksen a workable majority.
The Liberals, normally the main opposition party to a red bloc government, are unlikely to govern with Frederiksen, according to an expert.
“There will be negotiations, and the Liberals will come to these negotiations, but they will not last very long,” political scientist Rune Stubager, a professor at Aarhus University, told The Local at a press briefing on Wednesday.
“I don’t think [Liberal leader Jakob Ellemann-Jensen] has any incentives to give concessions and the Prime Minister doesn’t have many incentives either, to give him concessions, because she has the red majority to fall back on,” he said.
Because of Frederiksen’s preference for a central coalition, the Moderates “will be part of negotiations” and could even be able to secure cabinet posts if they are willing to “compromise sufficiently”, Stubager said.
But the situation falls well short of what Moderate leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen had hoped for – and looked on course to gain until late on election night.
Without the overall majority for the red bloc, Løkke Rasmussen could have played either side against each other, competing for his party’s seats and giving him a ‘kingmaker’ role.
Frederiksen’s options are improved by the red bloc win because she no longer needs Moderate seats to secure a majority, thereby weakening Rasmussen.
The Moderates may be unable to agree on a government with Frederiksen “because they will then be vulnerable to critique from the right-wing parties,” Stubager said.
Frederiksen “may then switch to a plan B, which I think is more realistic” — a coalition government with various parties on the left, he said.
The red bloc majority rests on two seats from representatives elected in Greenland and one in the Faroe Islands.
Three of Denmark’s four ‘North Atlantic mandates’ went to the red bloc, as they customarily do, with one (the second Faroese mandate) going to the blue bloc.
As such, it would be the blue bloc – and not the red – which would have a one-seat majority if these seats were not included in the overall count.
“It’s thought-provoking that Danes have said they want the chance of getting another Prime Minister. The North Atlantic must ask itself if it wants to decide who should be Prime Minister in Denmark,”
Conservative leader Søren Pape Poulsen said during a debate on Wednesday.
Rasmussen also bemoaned the situation, saying, “if you look at Denmark – not the Kingdom of Denmark, but Denmark – there is not a red majority,” he said during the post-election leaders’ debate in the early hours of Wednesday.
One of the incumbent Faroe Islands MPs in Copenhagen, Sjúrður Skaale, wrote earlier this year that he would prefer North Atlantic seats not to be decisive.
Alternative and Danish People’s Party survive threat of threshold
Two parties at opposite ends of the political spectrum – climate campaigners The Alternative and national conservatives the Danish People’s Party – both survived the threat of losing parliamentary representation.
Parties must take at 2 percent share of the popular vote to qualify for seats in parliament. Alternative took 3.3 percent and 6 seats, an improvement on their 2019 election result.
The Danish People’s Party, which had 21 percent of the vote in 2015, is now the smallest party in parliament with a 2.6 percent vote share and 5 seats.
Both parties will be relieved not to have fallen under the 2 percent threshold, with polls prior to the election having put them underneath it at varying times.
The high number of parties in parliament – there are now 12, and 14 ran in the election – may be related to the slight drop off in Denmark’s otherwise-high turnout, Stubager said.
“I think this idea of the broad government and also the many parties and the new parties may have confused some voters and really made it more difficult for them and some of them have solved that difficulty by abstaining,” he said.