Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is clinging on to her job after dropping her majority in an election triggered within the wake of a scandal over her choice to cull the nation’s inhabitants of mink.
According to an exit poll, Frederiksen’s Social Democrats are on track to stay the largest social gathering within the nation after Tuesday’s election, however her political survival relies on a brand new centrist grouping.
An preliminary survey by public broadcaster DR suggests the Social Democrats secured 23.1 p.c of the vote, which might earn them 42 of the 179 seats in parliament. This put them forward of the Liberal Party of Jakob Ellemann-Jensen on 13.5 p.c of the vote, or 24 seats.
But the end result can also be bittersweet for Frederiksen. If confirmed by official tallies, profitable 42 seats can be her social gathering’s worst election lead to greater than 100 years.
In a political panorama cut up between 14 events, each the left-leaning “red bloc,” which secured 85 seats, and the rival right-wing “blue bloc,” on 73 seats, fell in need of the 90 seats wanted for a majority within the 179-seat parliament. The remaining seats went to unaligned events.
The election was triggered by a scandal a few government-mandated mink cull throughout the coronavirus pandemic. An uncharacteristically thrilling and chaotic marketing campaign adopted, at occasions seeming to foreshadow the twists and turns of the newest season of the favored TV political drama “Borgen.”
If confirmed, the exit poll outcomes would imply Frederiksen would wish the assist of former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his newly fashioned Moderate social gathering, which secured 9.3 p.c of the vote, or 17 seats.
Rasmussen has not stated he’ll again both bloc, placing the previous prime minister within the place of kingmaker throughout the upcoming negotiations.
He used that place throughout the marketing campaign to name for a broad coalition of extra reasonable events from each the pink and blue blocs, a transfer that might upset the nation’s post-war political order. Some have even recommended he might use his post-election affect to carry out for a senior position and even the prime minister place.
But Rasmussen, who beforehand served as prime minister from 2009 to 2011 and once more from 2015 to 2019 for Denmark’s Liberal social gathering, stated he doesn’t envision changing into prime minister a 3rd time. “That’s not in my mind,” he stated Tuesday morning after casting his vote.
Magnus Heunicke, at the moment well being minister and member of the Social Democrats, instructed journalists that voters could have punished his social gathering for a few of the selections they needed to make throughout a “time when there was a real need for someone to show leadership.”
“I think we have done that and we can be proud of it. But it may also have taken its toll, because some people may disagree with some of the decisions we’ve made,” he added.
Heunicke reiterated the social gathering’s want to kind a broad, centrist authorities: “This result only underpins our desire for broad cooperation. Now let’s sit down together and see if we can form a centrist government.”
The Danish People’s Party, in the meantime, which was the second greatest social gathering within the nation from 2015 till 2019 and the face of far-right politics, misplaced important floor, in response to the exit poll. It’s solely projected to get 2.5 p.c of the vote, or 4 seats — simply above the parliament’s 2 p.c threshold.
Dramatic marketing campaign
Domestic points dominated the marketing campaign, starting from tax cuts and a necessity to rent extra nurses to financially supporting Danes amid inflation and hovering vitality costs due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Once a pivotal subject, immigration has fallen down the agenda, partly as a result of the Social Democrats have vowed to stay robust on migration, depriving right-leaning events of a doable rallying level.
Although Frederiksen’s social gathering will stay the biggest in parliament, it has misplaced reputation in current months — falling from 48 seats to 42 seats, if the exit poll is confirmed — after various scandals rocked her repute. These embrace a 2020 order to cull all the nation’s farmed mink over fears they may unfold a mutated variant of the coronavirus, a coverage that devastated Europe’s largest fur exporter.
A parliament-appointed fee stated in June that the federal government had lacked authorized justification for the cull and that it had made “grossly misleading” statements when ordering the sector to be shut down. A leftist social gathering backing Frederiksen’s minority authorities withdrew its assist on account of the report, forcing Frederiksen to name Tuesday’s early election.
Her center-right rivals, nonetheless, have additionally misplaced floor, with the Conservative chief, Søren Pape Poulsen, hit by revelations about lies instructed by his former husband and the Liberals affected by inside splits.
Negotiations to kind a brand new authorities might take weeks, with the correct bloc prone to attempt to match or surpass each provide made to Rasmussen’s Moderates by the pink bloc in an effort to regain energy.
This article has been up to date with extra particulars on the exit poll outcomes and election marketing campaign.
