Elections November 13th!

Yes, I am not joking! Election is on November 13. What election, you ask? Why, it is the Danish Parliamentary election of course!

My name is Mark and I am an exchange student at Wharton this semester. Back home I am a member of the Social Liberal Party and their youth organization, Danish Social Liberal Youth. Internationally, we cooperate with other liberals, like the Democrats and Young Democrats of America, so while I study at Penn I have sought refuge with the Penn Democrats. While your interests in a small country, far, far away may be infinitesimally small, I urge you to continue reading. Just as I learn more about American politics while studying here, you might learn something valuable about Denmark.

First of all, what is Denmark? I have been impressed by how many Penn students actually know of the country, and even more by how many (claim) have been there. But the broad Penn population might not know much about this country. In short, Denmark can claim responsibility for an insane amount of pork (usually exported to the UK, but I just saw that the local Murry’s sell Danish spare ribs), LEGO and LEGO land, drawing the infamous cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, sending troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq (but pulling them out of Iraq in August) and winning the European Championship in soccer in 1992. Apparently, not all Danes have a good conscience (or, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet would say: ‘There is something rotten in the state of Denmark’).

Denmark is a constitutional monarchy, which means that we do not have a president as head of state, but a queen (like the Brits). Our’s is called Margrethe II and she stays out of politics, only to serve in ceremonial functions. The Prime Minister, heading the Liberal-Conservative minority government, is Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As is his prerogative, he called elections about 2 weeks ago, which are to be held on November 13. And it is going to be a very interesting election. Wikipedia sums the elections nicely up so if you want all the details go have a look.

As of now, it looks like the Liberal-Conservative government, backed by a populist/nationalist ‘Danish People’s party’ will continue. There is, however, still the (slim) chance that a coalition headed by the Social Democrats might win. It requires not just the support of my party, which was given when the election was called, but also the right-of-centre ‘New Alliance’. And then it is still a long shot!