Denmark Parliamentary Election - June 18, 2015

[Diouf]

Turnout at 14 is 37.2%. Exactly the same as in 2011.

[Diouf]

What time is the exit poll out at?

Most of them will come at 20 when the polls close. There will be different ones. I guess TV2/Megafon and DR/Epinion will publish one each, and then perhaps one or two of the newspapers will make one as well. Metroxpress (mx.dk) wants the role as the "bad boy" so they have said they will publish YouGov exit polls before 20, but I haven't seen any specific times. I would guess at 18 and/or 19 if they carry through on it.

[Diouf]

Actually Metroxpress has just published their first exit poll: http://www.mx.dk/nyheder/danmark/story/15713210

2 126 respondents asked from 9.10 to 15.30

Narrow Red Bloc win (90-89) if North Atlantic polls go as expected

[Diouf]

Actually Metroxpress has just published their first exit poll: http://www.mx.dk/nyheder/danmark/story/15713210

2 126 respondents asked from 9.10 to 15.30

Narrow Red Bloc win (90-89) if North Atlantic polls go as expected

They are allowed to publish this even as people are still voting ?

Yes, no rules, but the other media have an agreement to wait until 20. Some of them have also been scared by recent disasters. DR had an exit prognosis around this time for the local elections which were far far off.
The result of the exit poll is not really different from the polls during the campaign, so any impact will probably not be that big.

[Diouf]

Turnout at 16: 49.6%. It was 50.4% in 2011 at the same point.

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Live streams for the two main channels. I obviously can't check whether they work outside Denmark.

DR: http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/valg2015/live/live.htm

TV2: http://play.tv2.dk/live/tv-2-news/#tv-2-news?icid=TV%202%20PLAY:big

[Diouf]

Finally managed to find the full numbers for the latest Faroese poll from 15 June

Sambandsflokkurin (Liberals) 26.5%
Javnaðarflokkurin (Social Democrat) 22.4%
Tjóðveldisflokkurin (Separatist, Socialist, but claim not to automatically support HTS) 20.7%
Fólkaflokkurin (Conservative, Separatist) 16.1%
Miðflokkurin (Christian Democrat) 6%
Framsókn (new liberal separatist) 3.7%
Sjálvstýrisflokkurin (Social Liberal separatist) 2.5%

A Faroese journalist report on Twitter that turnout in Klaksvik, the Fólkaflokkurin heartland, is up 30% so perhaps they have a chance to pick up one of the seats.
It seems like the non-Social Democrat parties have attacked HTS and the Social Democrats hard in recent days for their role in the EU's boycott of mackarel from the Faroe Islands after disputes about quotas.

[Diouf]

Faroe Islands

Tjóðveldi (Republicans, Socialist, Separitist) 24.5%
Javnaðarflokkurin (Social Democrat) 24.3%
Sambandsflokkurin (Liberal) 23.5%
Fólkaflokkurin (Conservative, separitist) 18.7%

So yes, narrowly both seats to the red parties, although the Republicans hadn't committed to HTS. As I wrote before the election, STV would probably be more fair for the Faroese and Greenlandic seats. I'm not completely sure of how the vote transfers would work, left-right or unionist-separitist, but with four parties so close, it seems like a better solution.

[Diouf]

Electoral churn is even more complicated in Denmark than in most places (ah fragmented party systems, don't you love them), but I'd advise you to look at where the DPP gained the most. Looks to me as if there was a hell of a lot of direct Venstre to DPP switching going on...

Indeed, the biggest single shift is clearly V to DF. I would still think that S to DF has been the decisive movement between the blocks; probably a bit of Social Liberal to Liberal Alliance or Liberal as well. Then the Social Democrats will have taken a lot of votes from their coalition partners the Social Liberals and their former coalition partners SPP.

[Diouf]

There were mistakes on the ballots in three of the electoral districts; Vejen, Billund and Haderslev. The top candidates for the Conservatives and the Alternative was placed lower on the list as all candidates were ranked according to name, and not with the top candidate on top as it should have been.
Experts say that there could be a re-vote, but it seems like it is parliament which have to decide on whether to ratify the current results or not. The Conservative top candidate in the area Mike Legarth does not look like coming in, so maybe the Conservatives would want to complain. But if the difference that could swing another seat to the Red Bloc is not very big, then I don't know whether the Right Wing parties will risk a re-vote in some areas for what is a minor mistake. We can see the personal votes tomorrow, and if the distribution of personal votes is not very different from elsewhere in the area, then I guess Mike Legarth might calm down. The Conservative and Alternative vote in the districts does not seem to be different from similar adjacent areas, so I hope/think they won't bother with a re-run, which would delay the (exciting) government formation process further.

[Diouf]

A poor result as expected for the Conservatives, but there might be some hope for the party in the 6 candidates it looks like they will get in. The leader Søren Pape Poulsen gets in and managed to improve his party's fortunes in Western Jutland to 4.9%. The former leader Lars Barfoed will not get a seat in Copenhagen, and instead the 27-year old Mette Abildgaard is elected in Northern Zealand. The 55-year old Mike Legarth will not be re-elected in Southern Jutland, while 35-year old Mai Mercado will be elected in Funen. Finally the 38-year old Rasmus Jarlov, who has been the Conservative leader in the Copenhagen City Council, will get into parliament.
So the generational change the party has been longing for, seems to come true. However, with recounts and so on, seats could change again inside the party, but it looks like they will get a completely new start.

[Diouf]

I'm still not really sure what government will come out of this. Lars Løkke Rasmussen was careful to say that he had "the possibility to form a government", but that it should be a government that took the direction he wanted. The complete opposite of HTS in 2011, when she acted like a rock star and talked only about the win, failing to mention that the Social Liberals' success at that election meant that it would be very difficult for her to get her programme through.

As it has been mentioned in the thread, the DPP has not really wanted to get into government before, and is not at all demanding to be there now. If they enter government, it will be difficult for them to avoid significant losses, and they are probably looking quite a lot at what has happened in Norway. They could lose votes back to the Social Democrats if the investments in the public sector will not be as big as they promised, they could lose votes back to the Liberals who could get a PM boost and might have more competent ministers, and finally, I think there's a big chance that it's right wing could fall to a new party, which can attack it on its too lenient attitudes to the EU and immigration in government. The Danish Unity could do this. Of course, it could be said that these risks are almost equally present if they stay outside the government.

There are a number of good things about being in a government, but Thulelsen Dahl has mentioned the failures of the SPP so many times. He don't want to repeat them, so he's fully aware of the dangers.
I really don't know what to expect. Maybe still a Liberal-only government like in 1973, but it does seem strange to stay out of government after a such a good result. I probably hope for a pure Liberal government, and it still is a relatively likely option, I think.

It looks like the Liberals will only get four seats in Eastern Jutland, so Fatma Øktem will unfortunately, probably have difficulties in getting in.

[Diouf]

What voting system do the Danes use? Here's me thinking it was plain-and-simple old closed list PR.

Only the Red-Green Alliance uses closed lists; the rank of their candidates is decided on at the party conference, not something ordinary voters should spare their minds with. But all other parties uses open lists, so those with the most personal support get in. The personal votes are counted tomorrow. It is not just personal votes that matter; if you have received 35% of the personal votes for a party in a district, you will also get 35% of the party list votes in the district, i.e. those who decided to just vote for the party in stead of for a specific candidate. So the big districts are attractive as the top candidate there will most likely get quite a lot of votes no matter what. Several candidates use the strategy of running as the top candidate in a district other than the district where they are most known, so that they can have two electoral districts where they get a lot of support.

[Diouf]

What are the differences between The Alternative and the Red-Greens?

If I'm right and I've understood things the right way, The Alternative is mainly a green party very similar to green parties in the rest of Europe, though probably slightly to the left of most other green parties as they've suggested a 30 hour labour week for instance. The Red-Greens however is to the left of Socialistic Left, which is already very leftish, so it's pretty much the most radical party of all. I hope I'm right though, as I'm far from an expert on Danish politics.

Pretty much correct. Basically, you could just say that the emphasis and rhetoric of the parties are very different. The Alternative talks mostly about sustainability, green entrepreneurship and "new politics" and their leader has said that he does not consider himself a socialist. The Red-Green Alliance members do definitely consider themselves socialist, and is basically a classic class struggle party which talks about social dumping, better conditions for the workers and the unemployed etc.
The room for a specific green party has been there for somewhile; we also speculated whether some of the SPP members would create such a party in the chaos when they left the government. In this election, the SPP has focused a lot on unemployent benefits and somewhat less on environment and climate, which has left the field open for the Alternative.

[Diouf]

So from the looks of it the seat total is 90-89 blue with the Faroes and Greenland seats, which means if just one seat were to flip from blue to red Helle would stay in office after all. What would be the chance of that happening with any additional tabulation/recounting/personal votes/etc? Sorry if that's a dumb question, I'm not very well versed in the Danish electoral system or their counting process

The electoral system is straight PR with the biggest remainder system; only the votes of the parties above the threshold is included in the calculation. I'm not a mathematician, but I think it will take some votes to move it to 90-89 Red victory. The TV2 prognosis only changes from 91-88 to 90-89 at the very last second, so it must have been closer to 91 Blue than 89 Blue.
I tried to do a fast calculation, and it seems like the Red Bloc got the last three of the biggest remainders, so I guess it would take some movement for the Blue Bloc to lose an additional seat, but I'm by no means sure. No of the TV channels mentioned the possibility. Normally seats don't change party after the final result, but they can certainly shift inside the parties between different parts of the country. If there's a re-vote in three areas, then I guess there's a real possibility of it changing.

[Diouf]

What about a V-I government? I can imagine that C desperately needs some time in opposition, it really needs to reinvent itself (this time without stupid slogans like "nazi islamisme", pretty please?), but isn't I ready to govern?

I can't really rule anything out, but I can't see it. They will need to ensure that such a government would indeed be very liberal in the economic policies; otherwise the roles could basically just be reversed, so the Liberal Alliance is in government, and the Conservatives can attack them from outside for not getting enough tax cuts through. Also, a VI-government would still have difficult negotiations with DPP or S to get its policies through. Quite a few commentators suggest that the Liberal Alliance has only said that they are ready for government (and have ditched their leftish immigration policy) because these two things were what people were pointing to in focus groups when ruling out voting for the party.

[Diouf]

Helle Thorning-Schmidt has been at the queen to resign. At 14, there will be a round at the queen where two representatives for each party will go to the queen and tell her who they want as PM. Then she will appoint an informateur or formateur. I guess it will be the latter since Lars Løkke Rasmussen will be backed by 90 seats. HTS will stay on as caretaker until a new government has been formed. The Social Democrats are already making Mette Frederiksen their new leader, and will then call an extraordinary party congress to confirm her as a leader. Interesting to see whether there will even be a challenger or whether she will be the only candidate; anyway it is difficult to imagine her not winning.

[Diouf]

Danish posters: do you think this parliament can last a full term?

Well, since the lead is only 90-89, then any defection from the right wing parties, either to the left or just to a non-commited centrist, will make the situation very messy and unstable. Lars Løkke Rasmussen had to navigate such a scenario the last time he was PM, when he needed a conservative-turned-christiandemocrat, to have a majority.

If that happens, it could mean that term will come to an end quicker than expected. Otherwise, I think there is a decent possibility that it could last. The Conservatives and the Liberal Alliance cannot in any way withdraw their support from the government as any other option would be worse. It is pretty much the same for the DPP; I can't really see them doing a Wilders and make a centre-right government fall. There is still no viable coalition/cooperation with the Social Democrats, so that would make them splendidly isolated. The Liberal leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen has been quite clear about not governing just to govern, so if he feels that he can't get any of his policies through, then he might resign. If the Liberals have risen in the polls by then, then he could call an election again relatively quickly, but otherwise he would probably give the DPP leader or another Liberal leader a shot instead of calling a new election.

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Graphic on voter movements: http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/valg2015/vaelgervandringer#O2011

When you press on the letters to the left, you can see where the party's 2011 voters have gone (e.g. 18% of V 2011 voters have gone to O). When you press on the letters to the right, you can see the make up of the party's 2015 voters (77% of the 2015 V voters also voted V in 2011).

As expected, the main block-crossing votes are from the Social Democrats to DPP (8% of their 2011 voters), and then the Social Liberals have bled a bit to all of the right wing parties (6% to the Liberals, 5% to DPP, 4% to Liberal Alliance and 2% to the Conservatives). SPP and the Red-Green Alliance also lost a few voters to the DPP

[Diouf]

Lars Løkke Rasmussen has just said that he will start negotiations to form a majority government with all four right wing parties. If he fails in doing that, he says there will be another round at the queen.
Apparently, the Liberal Alliance conditioned their support for Løkke this time on him creating a majority government. Smart enough of them; they can always take another round at the queen where they choose him without conditions if the first round of negotiations fail. The Conservatives have made some noises about staying out of government after another defeat, but it shouldn't be impossible for them to be convinced. In a majority government, they will probably only have to provide two ministers so it is managable administratively. Of course it can some times be good to build up outside government after another defeat, but if they can get at least one good minister post then that should be an at least equally good wat to attract some voters back.

[Diouf]

Now all the personal votes have been counted, and as could be expected with an election result like this, a lot of well-known names are out. Three ministers and two persons who were party leaders during this parliament are out along with several Liberal MPs.

The Social Liberal Minister for Children, Gender Equality, Integration and Social Affairs Manu Sareen lost his seat in Copenhagen to the former SPP-er Ida Auken, who is the daughter of SPP MEP Margrethe Auken.
For the first time since 1964, the Helveg Petersen dynasty will not be represented in parliament as the Social Liberal Minister of Climate and Energy Rasmus Helveg Petersen lost his seat.
The Social Democrat Minister for the City, Housing and Rural Affairs Carsten Hansen lost his seat despite Social Democratic progress. At the last election, he signed a letter promising to keep the local hospital; something which he failed to do. Hansen was the leader of the (somewhat marginalised) left-wing fraction of the Social Democrats.
The former SPP-leader Annette Vilhelmsen lost her seat to Karsten Hønge; the guy who made the rebellion in the party explode, which meant that Vilhelmsen had to draw the party out of the government and resign as party leader.
The former Conservative leader Lars Barfoed surprisingly lost his seat in Copenhagen. Barfoed only quit as leader last year, and is a former Minister of Justice and of Transportation.
The Liberal Peter Christensen was widely expected to get a significant post in a Liberal-led government, perhaps even as Minister of Finance. However, that looks less likely as he didn't even manage to defend his seat against the DPP onslaught in Southern Jutland.

Top 15 personal votes: The 2015 result is in the second box from the right


Helle beat Johanne in Copenhagen this time to clinch second place, but the expected victory from Thulelsen Dahl. Internally in the Liberals, it will perhaps be noticed that Løkke-supporter and hardcore immigration-critic Inger Støjberg received more personal votes in Western Jutland than deputy leader Kristian Jensen, who was very close to succeding Løkke as party leader at the dramatic party congress last year. Løkke himself finished fourth in the personal votes table, but lost more than 20 000 votes compared to 2011.

[Diouf]

Isn't Aalborg a big student city? Would think the left-wing vote would be greater there.

Aarhus is the city with the biggest proportion of students, but as in all of the three other big cities, there is a sizeable student population in Aalborg as well. However, the students in Aalborg are to a far, far larger degree children of the working class or at least the non-academic class. Students in Copenhagen and Roskilde are way more likely to come from academic homes. Therefore a classic academic party like the Social Liberals, and the non-social democrat left in general, is far more popular among Copenhagen students, while the Aalborg students are more likely to stay with their parent's choice of the broad working class/people parties Soc Dems, Liberals and DPP.

This point not only holds for the students, but also in general. Aalborg remains more working class and industry, while Copenhagen, and to some degree Aarhus, has a bigger creative class.

There is probably also a point about the size of the city. Copenhagen is so big that you can have whole student and creative class districts in the inner city. Aalborg is smaller, so those parts are combined with the working class areas in the suburbs of the city and even rural areas, so if you look at specific voting places, the difference is probably not as big. For example in the Aalborg Nord district, you can look at the difference between the Aalborghallen voting place and Vadumhallen. Aalborghallen is pretty close to the center of Aalborg, while Vadumhallen can almost be said to be rural and way more working class.

[Diouf]

This Voxmeter poll of "Who are you least likely to vote for" can help you understand the degree of anger at the election result you can find in many places, especially in Copenhagen of course.

DPP 27%
Red-Green Alliance 22%
Liberals 12%
The Alternative 10%
Liberal Alliance 9%
Social Democrats 9%
SPP 3%
Conservatives 2%
Social Liberals 2%
Christian Democrats 2%

One important point is that a third of DPP voters choose the Social Democrats as the least likely party to vote for. Along with an earlier poll that showed that around 40% of DPP voters had the Liberals as the second priority, it shows that there are limits to how close the DPP can cooperate with the left-wing without losing significant support. Of course, there are dangers to everything you do in politics, but the DPP could not work to close with the left, probably even on the economic field where they agree on much, without risking a loss of around a third.

[Diouf]

Lars Løkke Rasmussen has just given up on creating a majority government with all four parties. It seems like this was almost just a media stunt from the Liberal Alliance to show that "we really want to be in government" despite it being almost impossible to make such a majority government with policies that would be acceptable to them.
A new round at the queen tomorrow, and this time all the right-wing parties will just say that they want Løkke to form a government. I think it will then come down to whether it will be a Liberal government or a Liberal-DPP government.

[Diouf]

A poor result as expected for the Conservatives, but there might be some hope for the party in the 6 candidates it looks like they will get in. The leader Søren Pape Poulsen gets in and managed to improve his party's fortunes in Western Jutland to 4.9%. The former leader Lars Barfoed will not get a seat in Copenhagen, and instead the 27-year old Mette Abildgaard is elected in Northern Zealand. The 55-year old Mike Legarth will not be re-elected in Southern Jutland, while 35-year old Mai Mercado will be elected in Funen. Finally the 38-year old Rasmus Jarlov, who has been the Conservative leader in the Copenhagen City Council, will get into parliament.
So the generational change the party has been longing for, seems to come true. However, with recounts and so on, seats could change again inside the party, but it looks like they will get a completely new start.

Pape, Abilgaard, Jarlov and Mercado... That is four solid right wingers. Who are the last two? Does Pape get a pure right wing group? That would make his political project much more realistic.

Mr. Stop Nazi-Islamism Naser Khader and Brian Mikkelsen. Khader certainly quite right-wing, and after his failures in the New Alliance in explaining economic policies, he seems like he has lost interest in that part. His campaign was very much focus on immigration and extremism.