Danish Election: Incumbent Centre-Right Government Wins

The Liberal-Conservative Government passed the test of the Danish Electorate Tuesday. Polls did show that it was a close race between the block of parties led by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the opposition block led by Social Democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt (yes, she would have been the first Danish woman Prime Minister). In the end the opposition lost, however. Out of 179 seats in Parliament, the opposition got 84, while the government block got 95. While this might look like a safe victory for Mr. Rasmussen, it far from is.

Out of the 179 seats four are from the dependent territories, Greenland and Faroe Islands. Usually, these members of parliament (MP) will abstain from voting on Danish domestic issues. This might prove a problem for the Prime Minister’s minority government since he relies on one from the Faroe Islands. He also relies on the Danish People’s Party (DPP), which has 25 seats, and the moderate New Alliance (NA), which got five seats. DPP has backed the Liberal-Conservative government since 2001, but at the cost of a say on many of the government’s policies, e.g. a tough stance on immigration. NA, on the other hand, was created in May 2007 as a response to the DPP and it seeks to diminish its influence. Though NA is comparatively very small, on some policy issues, they may provide the government with needed votes to get a majority of 90 out of a 179.

The opposition fought hard until the very end, but the platform that prioritized welfare over income tax reductions did not go well with the population that gave the Social Democrats the worst results ever (25.5% or 45 seats). My party, the Social Liberals, was almost halved from 17 seats to 9, but that was not very surprising. The aforementioned New Alliance party is the result of an MP and MEP (Member of European Parliament) defecting from the Social Liberals earlier this year because of opposing views on political strategy with the rest of the parliamentary group. Many voters went with them. The two last parties in the opposition block is the Red-Green Alliance, a bunch of left-wing socialists who barely got into parliament, and the Socialistic People’s Party, who surprised everyone with a landslide doubling of its seats.

Some analysts say that we might see a new election a lot sooner than the maximum of four years (this one was about 2½ years after the last one). Though the Liberal-Conservative government won they do not have a large margin of seats. It is not unusual to see members from parties that defect during a term, but when it is down to a handful of MPs to decide the fate of the government we might see some struggles for control over policy. Also, the Conservative People’s Party, which is part of the government, has for a long time expressed that they want to see bigger tax reductions. This is just one of the areas where they disagree with the DPP. This instability might lead to an early election.

More on election at The Economist, BBC and The Guardian.