Denmark - Elections 2022
On 01 November 2022 polling stations across Denmark opened in a national election expected to change the Scandinavian nation's political landscape, with new parties hoping to enter parliament and others seeing their support dwindle. The election was sparked by the "mink crisis," which has embroiled Denmark since a government decision in November 2020 to cull the country's roughly 15 million minks because of fears about a mutated strain of COVID-19. A court determined in July 2022 the decision was illegal, and a party supporting the Social Democrats threatened to topple the government unless fresh elections were held.
Neither the centre left nor the centre right was expected to capture a majority, which is 90 seats in the 179-seat Folketing legislature. That could leave a former prime minister who left his party to create a new one this year, in a kingmaker position with his votes being needed to form a new government.
More than four million Danish voters could choose among 14 parties. Domestic themes had dominated the campaign, ranging from tax cuts and a need to hire more nurses to financially support Danes amid inflation and soaring energy prices because of Russia's all-out war in Ukraine.
The vote came as high energy prices and the highest inflation in four decades ate into household economies, and only a month after the sabotage of two pipelines carrying gas from Russia to Germany through Danish waters fuelled an unprecedented sense of insecurity among Danes.
At least three politicians were vying to become prime minister. They included PriOf the 179 seats in the Danish parliament, two come from each of Denmark's two autonomous territories – the Faroe Islands and Greenland.me Minister Mette Frederiksen, who steered Denmark through the COVID-19 pandemic and teamed up with the opposition to boost Danish defence spending in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and two centre-right opposition politicians – Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, the Liberal leader, and Soren Pape Poulsen, who heads the Conservatives.
A former Liberal leader, Lars Lakke Rasmussen created his new centrist party in June 2022. According to the polls, his Moderates could get as much as 10 percent of the vote. He had hinted he could see a ruling coalition with the Social Democrats and could also be considered a prime ministerial candidate.
After a trailblazing election campaign, polls now indicate that Rasmussen and his Moderates, founded only four months ago, stand to become the third biggest party in parliament, behind the Social Democrats and his former party, the Liberals.
Rasmussen backed the idea of a broad government, but had stubbornly declined to say whom he would choose to lead a new government. Although Rasmussen had not formally announced his candidacy to become prime minister, polls indicated voters would prefer him over right-wing candidates Jakob Ellemann-Jensen of the Liberal Party and Soren Pape Poulsen of the Conservatives.
On the centre right, two new parties that want to limit immigration are bidding to enter parliament and may push out a third similar group that had had a key role in earlier governments by pushing for stricter migration rules without being inside a governing coalition.
Among them are the Denmark Democrats (Danish: Danmarksdemokraterne), created in June by former hardline immigration minister Inger Stojberg. In 2021, Stojberg was convicted by the rarely used Impeachment Court for ordering in 2016 to separate asylum-seeking couples if one of the partners was a minor. She had served her 60 days' sentence and is now eligible to run again. Pollsters say her party could get about seven percent of the vote.
That could threaten the once-powerful populist, anti-immigration Danish People's Party, which had been falling apart in recent months amid internal disputes and is hovering around the two percent threshold needed to enter parliament. In 2015, the party grabbed 21.1 percent of the vote.
Stojberg's party is similar to another one - the small nationalistic, anti-immigration New Right party - that is already in parliament. They had called for a broad centre-right government.
Frederiksen had been heading a minority, one-party Social Democratic government since 2019 when she removed Lokke Rasmussen. Frederiksen was widely applauded for steering Denmark safely through the Covid pandemic, but her tenure was stained by a controversial decision to cull the country's entire mink herd in late 2020 over fears that they could spread a mutated variant of the coronavirus.
The order turned out to be illegal, resulting in the exit of a minister and a parliamentary probe. While Frederiksen avoided any legal consequences, it did result in fading support for her party and it shortened her tenure after a threat of a no-confidence vote forced her to call an early election. The mink affair had also fuelled criticism from opposition lawmakers of Frederiksen seeking to center power around herself and her office.
Frederiksen is under pressure to come up with solutions to the highest inflation in decades. So far, the government had been careful to use its favourite tools during the pandemic - massive aid packages and looser fiscal policy to stimulate the economy. Tight spending leaves little room to provide assistance or to improve health care and other welfare services, a key topic in the campaign. Other key voter issues are the cost of living and climate change.
The right-wing opposition is worried that generous economic policies of a left-leaning government will stoke inflation and herald an economic crisis similar to the late-1970s and early 1980s, when the country was led by the Social Democrats.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's existing government remained the strongest force after the early elections. However, Frederiksen tended her resignation to the Danish monarch in an effort to build a stronger coalition. Voters in Greenland gave Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen the last two seats necessary for the center-left bloc to win Denmark's general election. Two left-leaning groups, Siumut and Inuit Ataqatigiit, bagged 37.6% and 24.6% of the votes, respectively in Greenland. That gave Frederiksen's red bloc the required 90-seat majority needed to stay at the helm after a tight election.
Center-left Social Democrat Frederiksen resigned later in an effort to form a new government with broader support across the political divide. The move was something she had raised before the election. "I am so thrilled and proud. We have secured the best election result in 20 years,'' Frederiksen told supporters early Wednesday in Copenhagen. "It is also clear there is no longer a majority behind the government in its current form," she said, explaining her reasons for resigning to explore future coalition options.
Denmark's complicated political landscape included 12 parties in the new parliament. Frederiksen's Social Democrats won at least 50 seats, a gain, making them the largest party once more. The second force in Danish politics, the conservative-liberal Venstre party, suffered major losses — dropping to 23 seats from 43. Its leader Jacob Ellemann-Jensen said the poor showing was "first and foremost my responsibility."
Many Venstre seats were picked up by the new party formed by ex-Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, a former leader of Venstre. Rasmussen's party, called Moderates, grabbed 16 seats. Rasmussen was seen in particular as a potential kingmaker as his party currently sits outside of the two loose alliances of left-leaning and right-leaning parties, known as the red and blue blocs. The 58-year-old told supporters after the vote that he also wanted Frederiksen to try to set up a government, but said he would not yet refer to her "as prime minister." "I know for sure that Denmark needs a new government," he told supporters in Copenhagen. "Who is going to sit at the end of the table we do not know."
Other Venstre voters appeared to be migrating to more openly anti-immigration parties. They include the Denmark Democrats, founded by former hard-line Immigration Minister Inger Stojberg earlier this year. The new party claimed 14 seats, making it the fifth power behind the Green Left with 15. The new government was formed on 15 December 2022 and consisted of the Social Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and the Moderates.
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