Outgoing Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will be responsible for negotiating with all parties to form a new government in Denmark, the court of the Scandinavian kingdom announced on Wednesday after legislative elections that saw the Social Democrats in the lead but without a clear majority.
After meeting with the eleven parties elected to parliament, the king appointed Frederiksen to hold discussions in an attempt to reach a majority.
Initially, she will try to form a left-wing coalition with two parties – SF (Socialist People’s Party) and De Radikale, a center-left party, as stated by the royal court in a press release.
The left-wing bloc, consisting of five parties including the Social Democrats, secured 84 seats, compared to the right and far-right’s 77 seats.
The Moderates, led by outgoing Foreign Affairs Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, obtained 14 seats and will play a pivotal role.
The Social Democrats, achieving their worst result since 1903, remain the largest party with 38 seats out of 179 in Parliament.
Over the past four years, the Social Democrats have led a right-left coalition, but this setup is not favored by the Liberals, leading to a decline in electoral support for the government.
“The most likely outcome is that Mette Frederiksen will remain Prime Minister,” said Rune Stubager, a political science professor at Aarhus University, to AFP. However, he added, “It remains uncertain, as (centrist) Lars Løkke Rasmussen will also try to vie for the position, despite claiming otherwise.”
Frederiksen submitted her resignation to the king in the morning.
“A chaotic election resulted in many losers, few satisfied individuals, and one big winner: Lars Løkke Rasmussen,” Politiken newspaper summarized.
Rasmussen, an experienced figure in Danish politics and a former Prime Minister twice, stands capable of shifting the majority towards the right or left and potentially forming a coalition around himself, according to commentators.
– Lengthy Process –
Danes are gearing up for extended discussions before the formation of a new government. In 2022, negotiations lasted six weeks.
“It’s a long process, meaning the government won’t be formed and passing laws during this period will be quite difficult,” lamented Jesper Dyrfjeld Christensen, a 54-year-old engineer.
With 12 parties in Parliament, the political landscape is highly fragmented, but Denmark is accustomed to minority governments.
“To some extent, this is how Danish politics works: you have a minority government in the center that, on certain issues, forms a majority with the left and, on others, majorities with the right,” explained political scientist Rune Stubager.
According to Stubager, party negotiations will likely focus on economic issues, retirement, pollution, and immigration.
The traditional far-right Danish People’s Party scored well, at 9.1%, tripling its number of seats compared to the last election.
However, the three anti-immigration parties collectively gathered 17%, a stable figure for populist right-wing in Denmark for the past twenty years.
The Faroe Islands and Greenland each send two deputies to Copenhagen. While the Faroese re-elected their two sitting parliamentarians, one for each bloc, Greenland favored the leftist party Naleraq, advocating for a rapid independence of the autonomous territory from Denmark.
