Danish election: Old coalition certainties dwindle in snap poll

On a sunny afternoon in Copenhagen, married couple Mikkel and Trine are enjoying hotdogs between two local institutions. Behind them, the imperious grey facade of Christiansborg parliament made famous by the “Borgen” drama series. Before them, on an advertising hoarding covering a four-storey building, the smiling Social Democrat (SD) prime minister Mette Frederiksen. Forced by political rivals to call a snap election on Tuesday, Ms Fredricksen’s slogan is lodged somewhere between a promise and a plea: “Let’s take care of the future.”

So do voters see Mette – as everyone calls the 44-year-old leader – in their future?

“She’s been very competent in the pandemic and is a steady leader, she has my vote.” said Trine, through a mouthful of sausage and dried onions.

Mikkel is less sure and mentions Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s previous prime minister and this election’s dark horse.

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After a falling-out with his liberal Venstre party, Rasmussen formed the Moderates and wants a centrist alliance instead of another minority government of shifting alliances and consensus-building so characteristic of modern Danish politics.

“Rasmussen says a centrist government will be good for Denmark in these serious times,” said Mikkel. “Or maybe he just thinks it’ll be good for him.”

Polls indicate a comfortable win for Frederiksen’s SD on 26 per cent, but diminishing coalition options have seen her warm to the centrist idea she previously dismissed.

Fourteen parties

With many insecurities – and a record 14 parties hoping for parliamentary seats – it remains unclear whether voters will back the outgoing leftist “red” bloc, switch to the centre-right “blue” bloc – or embrace the third, centrist, option.

With her presidential leadership style, Frederiksen remains the woman to beat in a campaign dominated by climate concerns, health and pension reform and the indirect costs of Russian’s war on Ukraine: tripled energy costs and 8.7 per cent inflation.

“Her message is that she’s the captain with a steady hand on the tiller, that she has brought Denmark through one crisis and can do it again,” said Prof Kasper Moller Hansen of the University of Copenhagen. “She is trying to make this more of an election about security. Her message is: Vote for Mette and you’ll be safe.”

Underpinning SD success: a run of succesfully co-opting rivals’ policies, even the radical immigration ideas of far-right populists.

A decade ago, the idea of sending asylum seekers offshore for processing in Rwanda would have been denounced as a populist outrage. Now the SD and other mainstream parties back this as government policy, so much so that foreign minister Jeppe Kofod insists it is not a major election issue.

Asylum and immigration

He frames Denmark’s Rwanda policy – viewed as extreme even by many UK Tories – as a bold attempt to reform an asylum and immigration system that “de facto has broken down”.

“What we see in the Mediterranean is human traffickers taking advantage of the most vulnerable people who are drowning and we want to change that,” he said.

Another policy of sending Syrian refugees back to the Damascus region, which Denmark views as safe, has been condemned by the European Parliament and the UN for “demonising” asylum seekers.

Other dominant issues in the short campaign have been the cost-of-living crisis and proposals to tax farmers to reduce carbon emissions.

They have eclipsed the original cause of the snap election: in November 2020, Frederiksen ordered a controversial cull of 15 million mink amid fears animal virus mutations could undermine the Covid-19 vaccination programme.

In June, a parliament-appointed commission said the drastic move, based on “grossly misleading” statements, was illegal. However the commission agreed with the prime minister that she had not broken the law intentionally. Still, a multibillion compensation bill looms for over 1,000 former mink farmers and their devastated industry.

“The government closed farms, police marched in for the cull, it was very traumatic and all for nothing,” said Frederik Tolstrup, a former mink farmer and head of the Farmers’ Association on the island of Bornholm. Does he and other farmers trust Fredriksen with Denmark’s future?

“She wants to tax farmers, pigs, cows and acres of farmland and give more money to welfare, so: no,” he said. “But voters’ attention has moved elsewhere, away from our concerns.”