Danish election paves way for centrist government: exit poll - POLITICO Europe

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is clinging connected to her occupation aft losing her bulk successful an predetermination triggered successful the aftermath of a ungraded implicit her determination to cull the country’s colonisation of mink.

According to an exit poll, Frederiksen’s Social Democrats are connected people to stay the biggest enactment successful the state aft Tuesday’s election, but her governmental endurance depends connected a caller centrist grouping.

An archetypal survey by nationalist broadcaster DR suggests the Social Democrats secured 23.1 percent of the vote, which would gain them 42 of the 179 seats successful parliament. This enactment them up of the Liberal Party of Jakob Ellemann-Jensen connected 13.5 percent of the vote, oregon 24 seats.

But the result is besides bittersweet for Frederiksen. If confirmed by authoritative tallies, winning 42 seats would beryllium her party’s worst predetermination effect successful much than 100 years.

In a governmental scenery divided betwixt 14 parties, some the left-leaning “red bloc,” which secured 85 seats, and the rival right-wing “blue bloc,” connected 73 seats, fell abbreviated of the 90 seats needed for a bulk successful the 179-seat parliament. The remaining seats went to unaligned parties.

The predetermination was triggered by a ungraded about a government-mandated mink cull during the coronavirus pandemic. An uncharacteristically breathtaking and chaotic run followed, astatine times seeming to foreshadow the twists and turns of the latest play of the fashionable TV governmental play “Borgen.”

If confirmed, the exit canvass results would mean Frederiksen would request the enactment of erstwhile Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his recently formed Moderate party, which secured 9.3 percent of the vote, oregon 17 seats.

Rasmussen has not said helium volition backmost either bloc, putting the erstwhile premier curate successful the presumption of kingmaker during the upcoming negotiations.

He utilized that presumption during the run to telephone for a wide conjugation of much mean parties from some the reddish and bluish blocs, a determination that could upset the nation’s post-war governmental order. Some person adjacent suggested helium could usage his post-election power to clasp retired for a elder relation oregon adjacent the premier curate position.

But Rasmussen, who antecedently served arsenic premier curate from 2009 to 2011 and again from 2015 to 2019 for Denmark’s Liberal party, said helium does not envision becoming premier curate a 3rd time. “That’s not successful my mind,” helium said Tuesday greeting aft casting his vote.

Magnus Heunicke, presently wellness curate and subordinate of the Social Democrats, told journalists that voters whitethorn person punished his enactment for immoderate of the decisions they had to marque during a “time erstwhile determination was a existent request for idiosyncratic to amusement leadership.”

“I deliberation we person done that and we tin beryllium arrogant of it. But it whitethorn besides person taken its toll, due to the fact that immoderate radical whitethorn disagree with immoderate of the decisions we’ve made,” helium added. 

Heunicke reiterated the party’s tendency to signifier a broad, centrist government: “This effect lone underpins our tendency for wide cooperation. Now let’s beryllium down unneurotic and spot if we tin signifier a centrist government.”

The Danish People’s Party, meanwhile, which was the 2nd biggest enactment successful the state from 2015 until 2019 and the look of far-right politics, mislaid important ground, according to the exit poll. It’s lone projected to get 2.5 percent of the vote, oregon 4 seats — conscionable supra the parliament’s 2 percent threshold.

Dramatic campaign

Domestic issues dominated the campaign, ranging from taxation cuts and a request to prosecute much nurses to financially supporting Danes amid ostentation and soaring vigor prices due to the fact that of Russia’s penetration of Ukraine.

Once a pivotal topic, migration has fallen down the agenda, partially due to the fact that the Social Democrats person vowed to stay pugnacious connected migration, depriving right-leaning parties of a imaginable rallying point.

Although Frederiksen’s enactment volition stay the largest successful parliament, it has mislaid popularity successful caller months — falling from 48 seats to 42 seats, if the exit canvass is confirmed — aft a fig of scandals rocked her reputation. These see a 2020 bid to cull each of the country’s farmed mink implicit fears they could dispersed a mutated variant of the coronavirus, a argumentation that devastated Europe’s largest fur exporter.

A parliament-appointed committee said successful June that the authorities had lacked ineligible justification for the cull and that it had made “grossly misleading” statements erstwhile ordering the assemblage to beryllium unopen down. A leftist enactment backing Frederiksen’s number authorities withdrew its enactment arsenic a effect of the report, forcing Frederiksen to telephone Tuesday’s aboriginal election.

Her center-right rivals, however, person besides mislaid ground, with the Conservative leader, Søren Pape Poulsen, deed by revelations astir lies told by his erstwhile hubby and the Liberals suffering from interior splits.

Negotiations to signifier a caller authorities could instrumentality weeks, with the close bloc apt to effort to lucifer oregon surpass each connection made to Rasmussen’s Moderates by the reddish bloc successful an effort to regain power.

This nonfiction has been updated with much details connected the exit canvass results and predetermination campaign.