Published: Less than 3 hours ago
COPENHAGEN. When the results of the election survey are announced, the cheering is a bit half-hearted at the Danish Social Democrats’ election vigil.
– It is so even that it is impossible to know who gets to form a government, says Magnus Heunicke, Minister of Health in the Social Democratic government.
People stand tightly packed at the party’s vigil despite having been allocated the largest room in the Norwegian Parliament, the Danish Riksdag. Everyone knows that the Social Democrats will become the largest party. The interesting thing is how it goes for the others.
The television cameras and many people’s eyes are directed at the Minister of Health, who is one of the most prominent guests at the vigil so far.
– I hope we can form as broad a government as possible, but it may be difficult, he says while holding his wife’s hand all the time.
Big cheer
Magnus Heunicke does not want to point out which parties the Social Democrats might consider cooperating with.
– It must become an issue for the negotiations.
Then suddenly a great cheer breaks out. Significantly larger than when the party’s own figures appeared on the television screen.
It is the figures for the Danish People’s Party, the Sweden Democrats’ sister party, that are shown. They only get 2.5 percent and in that case just manage to climb over the two percent barrier.
It is a party that only a few years ago got 21 percent in the election. Now they are more or less erased. Which obviously pleases the Social Democrats.
When the polling station survey is over, the murmur in the room rises again. Chips and cheese arcs and wine and beer are offered. The atmosphere is rising despite the fact that the Social Democrats appear to be losing some seats in the Norwegian Parliament.
Most other parties also hold their election vigils in the parliamentary premises.
The victory for the incumbent Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen was more or less a given. But even though her party became the largest by a wide margin, there is no guarantee that she will remain as prime minister.
The left-wing bloc has not gained a majority of its own, but is dependent on one of the bourgeois parties changing sides.
It is in that light that Fredriksen’s announcement during the election spurt that she wants to form a broad center government and not the left-wing government she has led until now should be seen.
Power struggle
But the bourgeois parties have throughout the election campaign rejected a collaboration with Fredriksen where she continues as prime minister. While Fredriksen has rejected all solutions where she is not prime minister herself. She represents the largest party, therefore she must also rule, according to her way of seeing it.
A principle that Magnus Heunicke thinks is completely natural.
– That’s how we’ve almost always had it in Denmark, he says and swallows a sip of mineral water.
It is simply a power struggle where the leaders of four different parties all think they are best suited to lead the country. But the point is that the normally largest bourgeois parties have not made any good choices.
Liberals with Jakob Elleman-Jensen at the helm have lost almost ten percent compared to the last election according to the polling station survey.
Conservative party leader Sören Pape Poulsen has been involved in a number of personal scandals involving the man he was married to until recently. They are believed to have contributed to the party plummeting compared to the opinion polls that gave the party 15 percent in September.
So neither of them has a really good negotiating position.
On the other hand, it has the brand new Moderate party with former Prime Minister Lars Lökke Rasmussen as leader.
Have to compromise
Rasmussen was forced out as leader of Venstre after the last election loss but has made a remarkable comeback and is largely behind Venstre’s vote loss.
His party gets just over nine percent according to the polling station survey and thus becomes the balance between the left and right blocs, despite the fact that he himself is a bourgeois politician. But during the election campaign he has refused to say which side he intends to support. In doing so, he also indirectly lays claim to the post of prime minister.
Rasmussen’s promise is that he intends to bring down any government that is not a centrist government, that is, one that has parties from both blocs.
If the leaders of the four largest parties stick to their respective red lines, no government will be able to be formed at all. Something has to compromise.
The experts therefore believe that what is coming now are protracted and difficult negotiations where someone has to give way.
It will not be made easier by the fragmentation of the Danish electoral system. A total of 14 parties lined up this time and as the barrier is set low, there are many small parties that entered more.
Results Wednesday morning
Despite the fact that the Danish People’s Party is one of the election’s big losers, the atmosphere is good at their election vigil held in the parliament’s cafeteria. Most people seem satisfied that the party managed to stay in parliament by a hair’s breadth. Otherwise, it is doubtful whether the party survived.
Even louder is the roar of joy at the completely newly formed party Danmarksdemokraterne with Ingrid Stöjberg as leader. She has recently served a sentence with foot shackles because, as integration minister in the previous Danish government, she divorced asylum-seeking couples where one of them was under 18 years of age. She was impeached but has managed to make a remarkable comeback with her anti-immigration party, which has taken both votes and members of parliament from the Danish People’s Party.
A full election result likely won’t be available until Wednesday morning. But then there remains the difficult work of forming a government.
Many believe that it could be a Swedish long bench à la the 2018 election.