Talk Elections

Election on for September 15

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, whose government is trailing the opposition in most polls, called an election for Sept. 15 as a stimulus bill proposed this week looks set to lack lawmaker backing to pass.

Rasmussen, who has led the country since 2009 when his predecessor, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, became secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is calling a vote two months before his term ends.

“In the middle of a global debt crisis, Danes face a clear choice: uncontrolled debt or sustainable welfare,” Rasmussen, 47, said at a press conference at his official residence outside Copenhagen today. ``I haven't hidden the realities.''

Denmark’s frozen housing market and regional bank crisis threaten to prolong a recession in Scandinavia’s worst- performing economy. House sales have dropped to their lowest in more than six years, while two regional bank failures since February have triggered a liquidity crisis that Standard & Poor’s warns may force more lenders to default.

Rasmussen’s Liberal Party-led coalition introduced measures this month to combat the housing slump and beat back the banking crisis while calling for fiscal restraint. The 10.8 billion- krone ($2.1 billion) stimulus plan won’t get the lawmaker backing needed to pass through parliament, Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen told newswire Ritzau. The opposition, led by Social Democrat leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt, presented similar housing measures days before the government and wants to spend more to revive economic growth.

...

A Voxmeter poll published this week by Copenhagen-based newswire Ritzau showed the Liberal Party-led coalition and its allies would lose an election. The bloc would get 44.5 percent of the vote, while the Social Democrat-led opposition would win 53.5 percent, Ritzau said.

Polls indicate voters are more drawn to the opposition’s push for broader public spending, putting Thorning-Schmidt in line to become Denmark’s first female prime minister after a decade of Liberal-Conservative rule.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-26/danish-prime-minister-loekke-rasmussen-calls-general-election-for-sept-15.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_parliamentary_election,_2011

Finally a country's politics going in the right direction. Good to see the Horrible Coalition sent back into the dustbin it emerged from.

The polls:

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Maybe Jens can tell us more about the polls and how they turned out in the 2007 elections.

The new Megafon poll for TV2 shows a closer race:

51.7% Left-coalition
48.3% Right-government

26.1% S
24.9% V

http://valget.tv2.dk/menings

I really know next to nothing about Denmark, but I doubt I'd support any left-wing coalition in Scandinavia.

Interesting, anyway.

A Voxmeter poll, also from today, shows a fairly different result:

ABFØ (centre-left coalition): 54,1% (96 seats)
VCOI (government + supporting parties): 43,8% (79 seats)
The poll gives 2,0 % to parties not getting parliamentary representation.

A good site for comparing two polls (scroll down to the bar chart and choose the polls in the two drop-down-menus below) is

politiken.dk/politik/meningsmaaleren/ (sorry, I can't post links, use copy/paste)

Nice link :)

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Jens would know better (obviously) but I dimly remember the polls giving the government leads until the end of the campaign when things tightened up a lot.

I hope he comes back. Even if only to post in this thread.

Any reason for R/B's growth and the decline of DF and K? Also, kind of surprising SF is level right now. Not so long ago they were doing great.

I really hope the left wins! A bright spot in an overall horrific few years for the European left.

This means that losing Spain will be slightly less bitter. Still, nice to see one of Western Europe's most despicable governments getting the boot.

When I was in Denmark most of the people I talked to thought the right would win, although I was in Copenhagen which is fairly left wing and never went for the right to begin with so many may just have a cynical view that the rest of the country will vote to the right as it has in the past few elections.  I should also note France could swing left next year and possibly Germany the year after although I wouldn't get too excited.  It looked for quite a while like the Netherlands and Sweden would swing left, but they did not, so we shall see.  I wonder if the right will do better than the polls suggest due to the fact the demographics that generally vote for them tend to have a better turnout.  I know our politics are quite different, but that is what happened last federal election here in Canada where all the polls suggested a Conservative minority, yet they won a majority.

The cynical thing is quite common the world over to be honest. France is more likely to swing left than Germany to be fair. If anything, it's not outside the realm of possibility for the CDU to win the popular vote and form another grand coalition (or even a Green coalition), but they'll clearly have a harder time than they did in 2009. Although, the left have really developed an ability to monumentally shoot themselves in the foot and steal defeat from the jaws of victory. And Canada's politics, from what I know of it, is generally unpredictable - Canadian elections seem to have more wild, unexpected, swings than many other countries (1993, 2011, many regional elections).

Which party over there is the nazis? The Vent party?

?  You mean Venestre?

Venestre stands for "Left" or "Liberal", which is the very moderately conservative party that's aligned with ELDR in the EU.  K/Conservative is the mainstream conservative party.  I approve of both.

DF/Danish People's Party are the crazy right-wing populist nutcases.

They topped too early. The problem is that SF have moved somewhat to the right, centralised, compromised and become more responsable, so they have bleed the more radical socialist to Unity Left, the so called Cafe Latte segment to the Social Liberals and many former Social Democrats have returned to the Social Democrats. Of course they still stand to more votes than last election which was their best ever. So you can question a media which see the potential best or second best election ever as bad thing.
The Social Liberal (R/B) have had success because they do as they usual do, behave with absolut arrogance and run hard on getting influence, because the government was desperate they got that influence and the voters have rewarded them for it.
The Conservative have lost a significant amount of vote because their former leader became very very unpopular and Liberal Alliance have stolen much of their economic politics (and made it more extreme).
DF are losing voters because no one give sh**t about foreigners or Muslims right now, and because of Norway they can't behave as their normal charming self, it doesn't help that they have made some compromises which have hurt their voter segment rather badly.

The Left will likely win, but it's no sure thing. Everybody are tired of the government, people are tired of discussing Muslims and we can't harden our immigration policies any more without risking breaking international conventions, which the Liberals, Conservatives and Liberal Aliiance aren't willing to do. So the election is about economy, and while it has traditional been the rights strong points, they have had the power in 10 years, so the economy lies squarely at their feet.

This is not to be a asshole, but it's "Venstre", it means left and come from 19th century when the parliament was spit between the conservative Høire (right) and the liberal Venstre (left) with the Social Democrats as a third extreme left party.

In DF case replace crazy with "far" and remove nutcases and you have them. DF are sane, diciplined and well organised, they exist in a whole other category than most far right parties in  Europe, which make them on the whole a much more dangerous opponent than most such parties. Of course it should be said that the reason that a DF MP wouldn't fit into the Republican Party, would be because he would be too pro-gay, pro-abortion and to economical centrist to fit in, some of the things Republican presidental candidate have said about Muslims, would result in people being thrown out of DF if they said the same. 

At the last election in 2007, the polls all showed a "hung" parliament until literaly the last day(s). It looked like the VKO-majority was gone and that the new party, New Alliance (now Liberal Alliance) would hold the decisive votes. NA managed to mess everything up, went from about 5-6 % to 2,8 % of the votes and those 2-3 % moved to VKO, who just keep their majority.

I never really left ;) But I am quite busy with the campaign here in Cph...

Conservatives did it for them self, when Lene Espersen took over from Bent Bentsen as leader of K and pushed the quite well liked Per Stig Møller from the Ministry of Foreig Affairs - he became Minister of Culture - and then managed to gain a reputation as lazy and always on vacation. At the same time Liberal Alliance run a succesfull campaign that branded the party as the party for the young libetarian man, essential stealing an important part of the conservative voting base.

Never trust any polls that indicate a decline for DF. They have quite the shy voter base.

Radikale has managed to rebrand them self as compassionate centre right and has quite a succes when they finally got a reform of the "efterløn" (a early retirement system started in the 70'ties, that allowes people to retire between 60 and 65 on a reduced pension). They have attracted a lot of the so called Café Latte-voters who like all the environmental stuff and agree to the idea of the wellfare state (to a certain limit) but don't really like that they have to pay taxes (and are having a hard time about DF. They are predominately big city people and well educated).

SF enjoyed a long run with very positive press, but in last years the right started to attact SF. A campaign about the chef whips past as chairman of the communist party in the late 80'ties (he was kicked out from DKP by the hardcore stalinist later) and another where SF's full name always was said, to illustrate that the party was socialists (my oh my! ;) ) did some damage, but the big thing was the so called point system late last year.
The government introduced a point system for immigrants that was rather complex and in its essence made it easier to immigrate to Denmark or bring a foreign partner into the country if he or she was from the right countries (no need to say which) or was educated.
SF handled the situation about the point system pretty badly, not really saying whether SF was for or against and the next week S and SF presented their own point system, that really wasn't a point system, but five demands where you had to forfill 3 of them to be allowed residency. But at lot of the more left wing SF voters saw it as the same bacis concept as the governments and left for Enhedslisten and some of the creative class (as we call them) left for Radikale.

And now I'm of to campaign (in rain and thunder - everything for the party :D )

You guys wouldn't happen to have a link to a party test preferably in English, or even Swedish? I'm sort of curious to which party I'd be considered closest to. I'm guessing either Venstre, Radikale Venstre, or Liberal Alliance. I can read written Danish rather decently, but when it comes to politics there's always there will always be strange an hard words that non-speakers will have a hard time understanding.

You wouldn't vote with a party that allies with the far-right ? ???

Anyone who'd even, for the slightest part of the smallest moment, think about breaking international laws in order to eliminate immigration is a crazy far right nut in my books.

Anyway, if I was in Denmark, I'd probably vote Conservative or Liberal depending on their specific policies.

Edit - The Conservatives are more conservative than I thought, so I'd vote Liberal.

As opposed to parties that ally with the far-left?

Based on economic matters they might very well be the party I'm closest to on most issues, that doesn't mean I'd vote for them in this election. I'd either vote for Radikale Venstre hoping to get as strong centrist and centre-right influence as possible in the new goverment, or Liberal Alliance to strengthen the immigration-friendly right. But I still think it's quite likly I'd end up closest to Venstre on a party test.  

You might have a point if that was anywhere remotely close to the truth.

Depends on one's perspective; I consider the Red-Green alliance parties to be far left, and the Danish People's Party has far less problematic origins than, say, the Socialist People's Party.

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Results last time, just to give a general, you know.

What part of Denmark is the bellwether area?  I know Copenhagen favours the left, while the areas near the German border favour the right.  What part is the bellwether part.

Sorry but that's crap, there have been no such thing, they have suggested that Denmark pull out of some international treaties, which people can agree or disagree with, but are fully legal by any standard of international law.


That surprise me, because they have supported DF/DPP anti-Immigration politic through ten years so that DPP would support their policies (centralisation, New Public Mannagement, privatisation and in general favouring big business).

You mean the split from the Social Democrats after they didn't overthrow the king after his failed coup in 1920, the support of Trotsky over Stalin, the fact that it founder was thrown in Sachsenhausen under the War, their history of being one of the main group of Freedom Fighters under the War or their split from USSR after the Soviet intervention in Hungary? As far as parties go they have a lot less ugly history than the Conservative, who are successor to Høire, who more or less establised a dictatorship from 1866 to 1901. The primary reason DPP have a less distinct history than SPP, is more or less because all far right parties closed after 1945, so they had to reestablish themselves, when enough people who didn't remember the war became adult and could vote.

This is true for a lot of countries. The huge electoral break of the European Far Right in the last few decades is at least partially due to voters who always were there returning to their natural habitat, which they had left when that habitat became too toxic after '45. (I'd say)

The Danish electoral system are a mix of PR and multi-member constituencies. As such there are no Bellwether areas, simply put people vote after regional, class, income and ethnic origin. As such it's quite hard to find a average area, the maps above show the regions, which are lousy to show parliament elections. The SocDem are always stronger in region and municipality elections, simply because they are the administrative link and people trust SocDem more there, while in parliamental elections, which is about economy and laws where people trust the right more. In fact in along the southern border (Region of Southern Denmark) as you described it, the SocDem are usual quite strong at the elections, but the local Region Mayor won through great personal popularity and he belongs to the more social liberal part of Venstre.  

Yes it isn't unusual, but DPP are in many way unusual, because it splited from the Progress Party, which look a lot like the modern European far right except that it was created 40 year earlier than most such parties. It also what give DPP it unusual staying power, because its politicians have been in politics for decades, so they have both experience and a developed networks. In fact for all that DPP are reactionary, traditional and dislike modern media (like facebook). They are in fact the most modern party, they run it more like a streamlined corporation with a top-down structure, rather than the more bottom-up NGO-like structure of the other parties. Whether it's going to be viable in the long term, I don't know, but in the short term the results have been incredible. But when Pia Kjærsgaard retire we may see problems with the structure, simply because there lack ways to get rid of poor leaders.

I think most people would agree that the far-left is vastly preferable to the far-right.

By the way, Ingemann, welcome to the forum!!!

That information is quite different from that which is contained on their Wikipedia page (and for the record, supporting Trotsky over Stalin merely makes a group less extreme, not commendable); are you referring to the actions of the Communist Party of Denmark? : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_People%27s_Party_(Denmark)#1959.E2.80.9369

I was referring to their origins in the Communist movement, which is a political ideology much farther to the left than anti-immigrant populism is to the right.  For that matter, I don't consider the Danish People's Party to be as far-right as 'Eurocommunism' is far-left.    

Most people on this forum, perhaps.

I must say I seriously doubt that. I think it might be true in some countries on the continent (like your Belgium or say Austria) but not in Scandinavia. For one thing, the WWII far-right was a lot more right-ish than the current far-right. 

I wasn't saying that I knew for a fact that that was the case in Denmark, I don't know enough about the place to make such bold claims. But what matters isn't  the real ideological profile of a party, but the perceived one and/or the degree to which a certain relative position on the spectre would still be associated with WWII. In my own case, the VU was way more moderate than the N-VA, yet it is the latter that turned out to have a greater potential base.

But in general, I think it's true for a large part of Western Europe.

You'd think an American right-winger would have at least a small soft sport for a party founded by a CIA agent :P

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I thought this was pretty funny. Love the exception for White South Africans. And I'm surprised they haven't been scared by high crime rates among Hispanic-Americans!

Middle East sank below sea.

No, no, no this isn't racist at all. They're just conservatives who want to protect national sovereignty!

Isn't there an island in Denmark called LOLland

OK guy, thanks for letting us know.

Here is a test with 25 questions. It's only in Danish, but I used the Google Translator and understood most of the questions.

Here are my results:

Du har meget til fælles med:

Enhedslisten 59%

Du har en del til fælles med:

Socialistic Folkerparti 54%
Konservative 48%
Socialdemokratiet 46%
Kristendemokraterne 46%
Dansk Folkeparti 45%
Radikale Venstre 45%
Venstre 39%
Liberal Alliance 36%

http://jp.dk/indland/indland_politik/kompas

Hi guys
Lots of great questions from you, and some utterly stupid discussion about SF - I'll probably answer that at some point....

The Jyllandsposten test is ok - I'll try to answer any questions that might be (and if I suddenly find some time - to translate it)

Yup, and a city called Middelfart - and do notice that when you use an elevator, a sigh lights up with this text: "I fart"

And I know a guy, who's name is Bent Kock...

I tried the English translation. It made the first question into "The Wage must be abolished" I found that amusing. Then I looked up the Danish term to see what it was about.

Lol. Dansk Folkeparti first, despite picking the pro-immigration position on every such question. Go figure. (Unless I misunderstood the one about 24-year rule for families)


Dansk Folkeparti61%

Konservative59%
Venstre59%

Liberal Alliance49%
Radikale Venstre49%
Socialdemokratiet47%
Socialistic Folkerparti45%
Kristendemokraterne44%
Enhedslisten40%

Lolland is especially good because you have the obvious LOL thing, but also because of the Lollards.

Mind you, I also like the fact that there's a small island in Denmark called Møn (speaking as someone who lives within sight of Môn).

Its always healthy to be reminded that one's bias is not universal.  Do you always have bull sessions with people who agree with you?

Seriously?  They'd rather have Mexicans than Chinese?

Also, assuming I understood the questions right in Google Translate:

Liberal Alliance
56%
Venstre
54%
Konservative
46%
Dansk Folkeparti
45%
Radikale Venstre
41%
Enhedslisten
35%
Socialistic Folkerparti
29%
Kristendemokraterne
25%
Socialdemokratiet
19%

Which looks about right.

Yay google translator ! There are a few translated questions I couldn't even understand...

I understood it like: "Should the overtime premiums be abolished ?" because "Should the wage be abolished ?" doesn't make much sense, unless it's a communist question.

That'S what I get with a Chrome translation to German too, though. "Der Lohn muss abgeschafft werden." I don't agree at all, obviously.
Some others are weirdl, too. Question 12, going verbatim from German to English: "Profit you time, that 4-2 years has reduced, be prolonged again."

The result is in just an order of parties, right? In the top right?

Sozialdemokraten
RV
K (wtf?)
SF
DF
V
Liberal Alliance
Enhedslisten
KD

Quite strange even taking into account the comprehension issues.

Ah, I see now. It doesn't work in google-translate.

So, retaking it in Danish with half-remembered meanings...

Enhedslisten 68
Social Democrats 60
SF 58
KD 55
RV 50
Alliance 41
C 37
DF 30
V 20

I assumed "Should the wage be abolished?" referred to the minimum wage.

I'm have taken that test, and I'm going to guess it's the Efterløn (dir. translated After-wage) which are the problem. It's a special early retirement policy, which let people leave the work force a little earlier (5 year earlier*) at a significant lower rate than the usual pension (but only until they reach the standard retirement age). It was original a way to get rid of youth unemployment by letting people retire earlier, but it has evolved into a policy popular among people in physical hard and low or  unskilled job, who rather than working until they collapse or need to go on førtidspension (early retirement for people with chronic diseases) go on efterløn. It's deeply unpopular among the academics and white collars who feel the deep injustice of paying to something which primary benefit others than themselves.

*it adapts to the rising retirement age

Thanks

Either you meant "white collars" here or...

Ohhh, so I was completely wrong !

It's the Danish version of what we call the "Hacklerpension". In Austria this possibility of early retirement will be phased out by 2014, mostly because the ÖVP has argued that too many people are applying for it who are not classified as "hard workers", such as bureaucrats instead of construction workers. On this I´m on the workers side and I would like to see it continue for "hard workers" only, people who work in the construction business or steel business etc., while the bunch of overpaid bureaucrats can go an f**k themselves.

That's nice, but wikipedia aren't the answer to everything. To condemn SPP for it communist past are meaningless for people who don't know the context of its origin. The Social Democrats originated in a time, where a conservative royal supported semi-dictatorial ruled the country, it began moderate after this regime collapse in 1901, but after the king tried to coup the social liberal government, and the following social democratic "revolt" ended up compromising with the king (by letting the monarchy survive), the communists felt that the social democrats had betrayed their people and split from the social democrats. Most of the communist leaders was under the war either in KZ-camps, undeground (and member of the partisan movement) or fleed the country. Unsurprising this made them more loyal to USSR and Stalin after the War (while before the war they had been more hostile to Stalin), but it didn't keep them from split from USSR after the Soviet intervention in Hungary as the first communist party in West Europe, they used the next few decades to push for creation of a independent from USSR Eurosocialism. In my eyes that's a more worthy history than most parties around the world.

...and that's why using Wikipedia to pass judgement of random parties around based on a wikipedia article are not a good idea.

Yes thanks

Du har meget til fælles med:
Socialdemokratiet70%
Du har en del til fælles med:
Socialistic Folkerparti67%
Kristendemokraterne59%
Enhedslisten56%
Radikale Venstre53%
Konservative42%
Dansk Folkeparti33%
Liberal Alliance29%
Venstre29%

I think this thing is broken.

That's nice, but wikipedia aren't the answer to everything. To condemn SPP for it communist past are meaningless for people who don't know the context of its origin. The Social Democrats originated in a time, where a conservative royal supported semi-dictatorial ruled the country, it began moderate after this regime collapse in 1901, but after the king tried to coup the social liberal government, and the following social democratic "revolt" ended up compromising with the king (by letting the monarchy survive), the communists felt that the social democrats had betrayed their people and split from the social democrats. Most of the communist leaders was under the war either in KZ-camps, undeground (and member of the partisan movement) or fleed the country. Unsurprising this made them more loyal to USSR and Stalin after the War (while before the war they had been more hostile to Stalin), but it didn't keep them from split from USSR after the Soviet intervention in Hungary as the first communist party in West Europe, they used the next few decades to push for creation of a independent from USSR Eurosocialism. In my eyes that's a more worthy history than most parties around the world.

...and that's why using Wikipedia to pass judgement of random parties around based on a wikipedia article are not a good idea.

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My point being that they originated from the Communist movement, which is substantially more extreme than anti-immigration populist movements.  Of course they moderated over time....as have the 'far-right' political parties (including most of the parties that actually did originate from fascist movements).  I just think its absurd to personally blacklist a party in a Parliamentary setting for strategically allying with one type of off-center party but not another, which was the point of my original post.

Take it outside, please. Denmark. Den-mark. Denmark only, I think. Diolch, etc.

I actually understood 90% of that test without need for translation.

My result:

Liberal Alliance - 61%
Venstre - 57%
Konservative - 56%
Dansk Folkeparti - 54%
Radikale Venstre - 53%
Socialdemokratiet - 48%
Socialistic Folkerparti - 46%
Enhedslisten - 45%

No surprise really, as I suspected LA and V in top. RV lower than I had thought, but then from what I've read they apperently have really soft left-wing bad education policies, and there where quite a few education questions (which I always rank as important)

Megafon poll from yesterday had the Social Democrats slightly behind Venstre, but the left still easily ahead. I hope this doesn't become another left-wing "defeat from the jaws of victory" moment we've grown oh so used to.

Anyone kind enough to give any brief outlines of the issues, the parties, how the leaders are perceived, etc? Thanks for any help.

Seems that a lot of polls come out every day or so; trackers? So long there are only a few like that, best not to worry too much.

Besides, I don't think that 'defeat from the jaws of victory' is limited to our side of the fence. Most recent defeats have been obvious from miles off, and quite a few haven't been quite so bad as looked likely during the campaign. Mind you, if that sort of thing happens just once it can be quite scarring.

Venstre/Liberal:Just want to stay in power, ideological push some buzz words about individual choice and freedom, but after ten years of expanding the bureaucracy no one really believe them. Mostly push that they aren't the SocDems. Their leader PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen are seen as a tired little man, who fumble from issue to issue. Most believe them to be more responsable on fiscal issues

Social Democrats: People mostly see them as the guarantee for the survival of the welfare state, use most of their time warning that it's going hurt when they get power and say that everybody are going to hurt everybody equally and they promise nothing. Ironic this seem popular among the population, mostly because they are tired of Venstre, but also because it's seen as a short term il tasting medicine. Helle Thorning-Schmidt is not very popular neither internal in the party or among the wider population, but most think that she will be a good PM. She will likely win.
While left, the SocDems lack the bleeding hearts of the rest of the left, and are willing to do what's necessary to win, rule or make Denmark prosper. This are a mayor reason to why they can get away with promise doom to everybody, because people know that the SocDem want what's best for the entire population, even if it hurt on the road to that goal

DPP: Nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-EU, want to turn the clock back to the early sixties, through they are pro-choice and gay rights. Beside their voter segment most people are tired of them, including the rest of the right, so they have started a internal war on the right with the conservative. They will likely win the battle but lose influence, by making the centre-right voters move to the left. Pia Kjærsgaard is the most hated, feared and respected politician in Danish politic, but most voters want her to lose influence.

SPP: Have more less evolved into the left-wing of the SocDems, doesn't love EU like most parties but accept it. Villy Søvndal have a incredible personal popularity, but he has become unable to translate that into votes anymore.

Social Liberals: Bleeding hearts liberals, imagine a American liberal, with more fiscal conservative policies, but all the arrongance of the American "centrists".
They want to lower the taxes on work, raise it on property, open the borders for immigration, more European federalism and cooperation between the right and left (keep DPP away from power). Their biggest weakness are their arrogance, which ensure that many who agree with them won't vote for them, another weakness are that their voters tend to be a lot more fiscal left than they are. Margrethe Vestage hard to say, the media and the "creative class" love her, but outside that segment people tgend to find her off putting.

Conservatives: Want to cooperate over the middle to get rid of DPP's influence, through after ten years of cooperation few believes them, beside that lower taxes. Lars Barfod: who?

Liberal Alliance:; Lower taxes, lower taxes, lower taxes, lower taxes, lower taxes, lower taxes, lower taxes and lower taxes. The party is more or less bought and paid by Saxo Bank, a bank well known for it asocial and borderline criminal behaviour. Anders Samuelsen want to create a new centrist party, the problem are that the moment Saxo Bank cut the fiscal support the party is unlikely to survive. As a person Anders are popular among his voters and seen as a fanatic by everybody else.

Unity List: take a standard college socialist's opinions and make a party out of that and you have unity list. Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen she's something of a light weight, but she's also the world's nicest girl, that's maybe her biggest strength, everybody like her, including her opponents, so not only they don't want to attack, they would likely get a backlash from their voters if they did. So even Pia Kjærsgaard, who take a deep personal pleasure in ripping the limbs of other politicians treat her nice.

Christian Democrats: anti-abortion, anti-gay adoption but beside that a typical centre left party, except that they hate the centre-left. Per Ørum Jørgensen a complete non-entity.

What differentiates Venstre from the Conservatives? Is it simply history or are there policy/appeal differences between them?

Primary history and voter segment. The Conservatives tend to be slightly more nationalist, pro-environment and pro-big state, beside the Conservative are much more urban, while Venstre tend to be rural. But any policy one adopt the other can adopt too.

It's important to remember that in Danish politics the four old parties (SocDem, SocLib, Venstre and the Conservative) tend to have much more class, region and income-based voter segments, who are quite loyal, while the new parties are much more random in voter segments and their voters are much more illoyal.

Which shows up in maps of party, support of course.

Yews but you can't see it on regional maps, you need to look at municipality to municipality, and with the last reform many of the rural municipalities has become integrated with former urban municipalities, which are why the SocDem are so dominating on in municipality elections*. The Conservatives are especially strong in Northeast Zealand centred on Gentofte (the richest municipality in Denmark), beside that their primary strongholds are Frederiksberg and Odense. Through they are losing influence in the latter, thanks to the more neoliberal attitude they have taken over the last decade.

*They are strong in urban area, and moderate sized in rural areas, so they benefitted the most of these reforms (which was meant to weaken them)

Are results of the last general election by municipality still online somewhere?


Often the way when local government changes are influenced by partisan considerations. The old South Glamorgan County Council was drawn in the 1970s to give the Tories a better than even chance of running it in an even year, but had a Labour majority for all but four years of its existence.

Gerrymandering backfire ? That's quite interesting, how exactly did it happen ?

http://www.kmdvalg.dk/fv/2007/dk.htm

Ah, diolch, diolch, diolch... I shall do something with this. Some work to do first, but, then...

Politicians are generally terrible judges of such things.

I think I'd side with the Conservatives... hope the government can hang on.

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Done for test purposes as much else. Map shows leading party in 2007 by percentage lead and (because the way the Danish party system be) is actively misleading in a couple of places. Party vote maps more fun, but they'll come later. Outline map taken from the Electoral Geography site, not sure where from originally though. Will credit if required, etc.

"F"?

SF's letter.

A little repetition ;-)

A = Socialdemokratiet (Social Democrats). Alt. S or SD
B = Radikale Venstre (Social Liberal Party. Litt. Radical Left). Alt. R or RV
C = Konservative Folkeparti (Conservative People's Party). Alt. K
F = Socialistisk Folkeparti (Socialist People's Party). Alt. SF (most common)
I = Liberal Alliance. Alt. LA
K = Kristendemokraterne (Christian Democrats). Alt. KD
O = Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People's Party). Alt. DF
V = Venstre (Liberal Party. Litt. Left).
Ø = Enhedslisten (Unity List). Alt. EL

Thank you Al, that's awesome. :)

Yeah, the only one of these I ever can remember is A. :P (And V because it's obvious, obviously.)

Nice map. It do shows Venstre's strength in Jutland, mostly West, South and Triangle area (Vejle, Kolding, Fredericia). SF's power centre in Copenhagen and Lolland (caused by the late great Flemming Bonne, former mayor in Nakskov) SD's strength in the mayor cities and in suburbia. And the Conservative capital of Gentofte.

When you make the party maps, you'll see that Enhedslisten gets most of its votes in central Århus and Copenhagen.
That Radikale Venstre also is a big city party. Little is left of the former radicale strongholds in Holbæk and Salling/Skive.
And that Dansk Folkeparti's votes comes from quite the same areas as Venstre and some parts of suburbia (but not in the areas with high concentration of immigrants)

C is fairly obvious too. I, O and Ø doesn't really make sense ;)

I suppose the letter O has more white in it than any other letter?

Nice post, and welcome to the forum. I don't agree with everything, especially the part about SF for obvious reasons ;) but hey, it's you outline :D

LOL, you might be right - And D was taken by Centre Democrats, when DF was founded. (I always think of it as a zero, symbolising their understanding of modern society among other things;-)

More smallholders and certain local personalities and radical newspapers (Holbæk Amts Venstreblad)

DPP fail to delive on local level, while a lot of people was pissed that their municipalities was forced together by the government.

Another element is that the Danish municipalities are a lot more powerful than in other countries,  they are also the major part of the executive branch, beside hostitals and the police, they are the most likely contact people have with the state, and while people tend to trust the right more on fiscal matters, on administrative matters SocDems are much more trusted. DPP model also translate quite well to national politic, administrative people don't trust them, and their top-down model have resulted in weak local organistions.

In my eyes the comparison to the SocDems are a compliment:p, but thanks.

The use of letters to symbolise the parties started in Copenhagen municipality in the late 19th century, with the Social Democrats taking "A", Venstre "B" and Conservative "C", but with the split of Venstre into RV (radical left) and Venstre (moderate left), RV was stronger* in Copenhagen so they kept the letter "B". Venstre later adopted "V" when the letter system spread from Copenhagen.

*Venstre was more or less non-existent in Copenhagen until after the war, only being kept alive by rural migrants (in fact native-bore Copenhagen Venstre-voters are more or less a post-1990 phenomen and still relative rare)

It is really interesting that you should mention that Ingemann, because that was the situation in Norway as well (I lived there from 1995-1999). In Oslo (Norways capital city), Venstre (the sister party of the Danish Venstre) was practically destroyed in the early parts of the 20th century. They have only reappeared the last few years.
If I remember correctly I think they were replaced by Hoyre, which is the main center-right party, and the Norwegian equivalent of the Danish Conservative party.

The vote on the left was splitt between the more dominant Arbeiderpartiet and smaler NKP (the communist party).

()

To see it in its full glory (?), use the magic of right click. Some minor errors are always possible.

What's with KD's stronghold area?

The left are weak in the area, it's the stronghold of Inner Mission (Christian Fundamentalists). As such the strength of KD is to be expected. Whats more surprising are the strength of DPP in west Zealand (but it's because it's Pia Kjærsgaard's election district) and their weakness in North Jutland (which were a stronghold for the Progress Party)

What Y was?

Swedish media is reporting today (http://svt.se/2.22584/1.2530317/borgerliga_knappar_in_i_danmark) that the centre-right is gaining back ground according to a poll by Voxmeter, and that they're know only slightly behind the centre-left.

I know nothing about the pollster, so they might just be bad, or it's an outliner. Wouldn't surprise me too much if it were true though. Goverments tend to gain a bit when the election is coming closer. Could end up being a Danish version of Sweden 2006 when the opposition had a decisive lead for a long time before the election, but where the election got really close in the end and the opposition only ending up defeating the goverment by a very slim margin.

 

There's a Megafon poll out today showing the left's lead widening. Looking at some of the other polls as well, Voxmeter appear to be showing noticably less support for the Socialists and the Greens than other pollsters.
http://politiken.dk/politik/meningsmaaleren/

If Helle Thorning Schmidt isn't the next PM of Denmark, the European Left are beyond screwed.

Probably an outliner. And my money is of course still on Thoring Schmit having majority support (in one form or another) but I think it might end up closer than it looks.

Going to spend the night with a Danish guy, should be an exciting evening.

EDIT: Looking at Al's amazing maps. That little Green spot north of Copenhagen is Pia Kjaersgaard's home town, fun little trivia.

The left has gone from a 95-80 lead to a 90-85 lead, while it's not impossible it's going to be closer than that, I lean that we will ast least get 90-85 split, if not we will see the right win, simply because if it become closer the left will panic. The last week are going to be interesting, if nothing else gbecause of the leak* of Helle Thorning-Schmidts tax case. While the great irony is that it shows she's innocent, the media has spun it like she's guilty. Much depend on how the voters react to this.

*The leak seem like it likely come from the government itself, which means that there are a chance that even if they win, they may end up collapsing later, if the police find out who did it.

It looks like the Left-Coalition still has about 51-53% support in todays 4 tracking polls.

The only real trend I have noticed recently is that the Venstre could overtake the Social Democrats.

Also, the Enhedslisten seem to gain ground rapidely, from 2% to 7% now.

Is this graph accurate ?

()

I find it quite surprising to see there are so few polls recently.

There have been more than that, yeah. A link was posted earlier in the thread and here bist: http://politiken.dk/politik/meningsmaaleren/

I don't get the left's apparent downfall... Did something particular happen in these last weeks ?

It's a pretty small shift and it's not so strange for governments to mount a bit of a comeback during an election, especially if they've been polling terribly for a while.

Elections get closer in the spurt, that's just the way of things. Polls tightened in Sweden both in 2006 and 2010 the week before the elections. 

Still, having Venstre > SD and DF > SF is a pretty significant change, no ? Doesn't that mean the left's overall leadis razor-thin ?

Todays voxmeter is saying it's only 1,5% lead for the left. There are two other polls sayig the left's lead is 4,8% and 4,9% respectivly.

We just had the last party leaders debate on DR.
The PM seemed like a man under pressure and Pia Kærsgaard kept on trying to attack Villy Søvndal without succes. I don't really think that the debate changed much and most certainly easn't a game changer for Lars Løkke.

To summarise a bit on the whole polling debate: The polling firms are spitting out polls every day and a few of them show a close race. The closest was 88 to Red Block and 87 to Blue Block, but remember that the most likely outcome of the North Atlantic mandates is 2 red from Greenland and 1 red and 1 blue from Faroe Islands. Blue Block thus needs 89 Danish mandates to win, and no poll has been even close to that.

Internally in the blocks, there has been some changes.
Enhedslisten is on its way to its best result ever, around 5-7 %. Not since the 70'ties has the extreme left has such a succes. A lot of it is because of Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, the young and charimatic spokesperson for the List. Not the other hand has the List been under heavy fire the last few days because of the quite radical opinions of its members, who want to nationalise Maersk and Lego and support FARC and PFLP. Enhedslisten will get an excellent result but perhaps "only" around 5 %.
Radikale Venstre has also gained and is looking at a result around 7-9 %. Again a charimatic leader, Margrethe Vestager, holds some of the explanation but also some clear stances on immigration, economy, taxes and early retirement has attracted the Café Latte segment, who adored SF and Villy Søvndal in 2007

The losers are SF and S who at best is going to get the same result as in 2007. S perhaps a bit over, SF probably a bit under. Both parties are suffering from their somewhat pragmatic (and boring) policies and a Villy Søvndal and SF who have had a hard time being the responsible government party... (me no like ;) )

Blue Block hasn't showed the same major changes. Conservatives is loosing bad and is going to lose half their seats. Venstre is losing a little. DF is unpredictable a usual and Liberal Alliance is probably going to get a decent result if their can control some of their more unconventional candidates, like Joachim B. Olsen, former Olympic bronze medalist in short putting, who started talking about allowing polygamy (and he isn't even a Mormon)...

Sorry about not posting much - real life campaining is keeping me quite bussy :)

Yeah, I noticed the collapsed Conservative vote. Where have they gone? To Venstre?

Liberal Alliance, and Radikale Venstre possibly

Primarily to LA, but also to Venstre, who have lost votes to SD (working class votes), who have lost votes to SF (more left wing social democrats) who have lost votes to Radikale (Cafë Latte) and Enhedslisten (Latte and left wing socialists)

Here's the average of the final 4 tracking polls (Voxmeter, Ramboll, Megafon, Gallup) today:

24.3% (2007: 25.5%) A => Socialdemokratiet/Social Democrats
10.6% (2007: 13.0%) F => Socialistisk Folkeparti/Socialist People's Party
10.0% (2007:   5.1%) B => Radikale Venstre/Social Liberal Party
  6.8% (2007:   2.2%) Ø => Enhedslisten/Red-Green Alliance

51.7% (2007: 45.8%) => Left/Opposition Alliance

23.7% (2007: 26.3%) V = Venstre/Liberal Party
12.3% (2007: 13.8%) O = Dansk Folkeparti/Danish People's Party
  5.8% (2007: 10.4%) C = Konservative Folkeparti/Conservative People's Party
  5.6% (2007:   2.8%) I = Liberal Alliance

47.4% (2007: 53.3%) => Right/Government Alliance

0.9% (2007: 0.9%) K = Kristendemokraterne/Christian Democrats

BTW, why is the Right-coalition not referred to as "VOCI", but as "VCOI" - even though the "O" was/is bigger than the "C" ?

;)

Presumably because V and C were the original coalition with O only being a supporting party?

I just found out Thoring-Schmidt is married to Niel Kinnock's son. Am I the only one who didn't know this already? That's quite intresting considering there seem to be a few similarities between Denmark '11 and Britain '92.

A goverment that is fighting for it's fourth general election victory, with a new PM who replaced a more charismatic leader mid-term. Polls showing a relativly close election, but the opposition having the edge. It's the opposition leader's second general election, but the leader seem unable to get people especially exited about their party and support for the opposition seems more due to people being tired with the goverment than them actually wanting the alternative.

There might (although very unlikly) be a chance of Helle following in her father-in-laws footsteps tomorrow.

 

V and C is the government parties and the government is called VK-regeringen (the VK government. Nobody calls it VC because WC and VC is pronounced the same way in Danish ;) )
The Blue Block was originally called VKO, with DF as the supporting party providing the necessary mandates for the majority. Shortly after the 2007 election did VKO lose the majority (a conservative left the party) and became dependent on Liberal Alliance, thus adding the I to the Blue Block = VKOI or VCOI, but nobody uses that. It's still VKO, much like a coming SD-led minority government will be called S-SF-R or ABF even though Ø will supply the last mandates for the majority. 

Common knowledge in Denmark, but a lot don't know who Neil Kinnock is ;)
Danish PM don't tent to be popular before they become PM's - PR makes coalitions necessary and doesn't promote a "presidential" election - especially not in this election, where the most popular politicians all are from smaller parties. Margrethe Vestager, Villy Søvndal and Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen are all far more popular that Helle Thorning and Lars Løkke and are liked by more than 50 % of the population. That gives this situation where the smaller parties attract a lot of the votes. There is a good change that the two largest parties will not hold a majority, quite a change from 2001, where SD and V had more that 60 % of the votes.

It's interesting (though not really surprising) that the different last trackers all show similar overall numbers (92 left, 91 left, 91 left, 92 left) but show different things within each block.

If the Christian Democrats for example would get past the 2% (I think) threshold, have they said which coalition they would prefer to be in ? Do they even want to be in one or do the coalitions want them to be part of it ?

I guess from their platform, they would enter the current government coalition, right ?

Is it definite that the coalitions cling together in this election?
And that not for example, the Radikale Venstre goes with the center-right?

I've heard a lot of talk about a possible AFO coalition if ABFØ doesn't manage to get along, but I'm not taking that seriously.

I have a hard time seeing the current coalitions breaking up.

Uh, the Danes with their weird party letters... but I looked it up.

So there is talking about a coalition of Social Democrats, Socialists and the Danish People's Party? I hope your right and it isn't serious.

I'm not exactly a friend of Querfront ideas.

They will support Lars Løkke Rasmussen

'
No, not in historical context, but honestly unless VRKI can get over 90 mandates, it isn't realistic today. Of course VOCI can offer R's leader to become PM if the negotiation with AFØ fails. Which is R's strongest card. But honestly O(DPP) voters hate R more than anybody else, so it's something of a empty threat.

It's not going to happen. Honestly even the offer is mostly a big sarcastic "fyck you" from AF to DPP and its rhetoric about social justice.

---post edited to get the meaning through our silly filter---

That's what I expected.

Would you agree with the argument that the Radikale Venstre fill the gap for the nonexistent Greens in Denmark? Well educated electorate, focusing on post-materialist issues etc.

No SF mostly take that position, through now that they have begun to embrace more coherent and pragmatic position, Enhedslisten has begun to take over that position. Radikale Venstre are closer to FDP in ideology, through they often share voters with SF and Enhedslisten, through they have gotten a influx of conservative voters in this election.

I don't think they would support the current coalition on the right, mainly because of The Danish Peoples party. In that respect they are quite like the Norwegian Christian Democrats.
The difference is that the Norwegian Christian Democrats are at least somewhat relevant.

They would support Lars Løkke Rasmussen, they have even said so. But even if he got in a government on their votes, they wouldn't necessary support the laws the government pushed through, which would mean that it would need a alternative majority. Just as in case of a ABF government, they will likely cooperate more with the right than with Unity List and UL will accept that and keep supporting the government, because they hate the alternative more.

So both Thoring-Schmidt and Søvndal apperently saying that the 24-year rule will remain in place if (when) they form the next goverment. So they're not even going to get rid of the most stupid of DP's immigration restrictions. Guess that removes any reason I might have had to want a red victory

The 24-year rule stays because the Socialdemocrats want it to. And they have a majority with V, K and O. So yes, but SF doesn't support it, but has made an agreement with SD that removes some of the other bad things introduced under the current government, most importantly the socalled Starthjælp (litt. start help) a heavily reduced social benefit and the ban on asylum seekers working and living outside the asylum centres while their case it being processed (which can take years). Right now they are locked up in the centres for years and years.

Well, I don't completely agree with that description. SF managed to incorporate the green movements in the party in the late 70'ties and early 80'ties, which meant the the Danish Green Party never got more than 1 ½ % of the votes. That is also why SF went from less that 4 % in 1977 to 11 % in 1981. The same thing happened in Norway, and is to some extent connected with the fact that SF and SV were "new" parties and not associated with the old communist movement. In Sweden and Germany with Vpk and DKP that wasn't a possibility.
Radikale has been from the foundation the party of the intelligentsia and never closely associated with NGO's (or movements, as it's called on the Danish left wing ;) ) Originally FDP and RV shared quite a lot, but today FDP's real sister party in Denmark is Liberal Alliance. SF and RV might share a lot of policies on social values, and in that way do share voters, but is quite different on economical policies - If you where a bit cynical, you might say that many RV voters are left wingers, who now earns money and are felling the Danish taxation (topskat) ;) 

So they might change one of the most outlandish horrible immigration policies, but leave the rest. Personally I don't feel that makes up for it. The Social Democrats in Denmark has every fault of the Social Democrats in Sweden, but they even lack the redeming qualities that our Social Democrats has. The fact that they're so unwilling to change the 24-year rule shows that they're just as willing as Venstre and Konservative to throw immigrants under the bus to obtain electoral success and power.  

Cannot disagree with that - but 10 years of DF "in power" has caused quite a change in discourse compared with Sweden.

Hi,

I don't know if anyone would be interested - but I've put together an Excel spreadsheet of the detailed results, down to municipality and polling district, for the 2007 Danish election, coloured by winning party.

If you'd like a copy, please drop me a line at electiongame@yahoo.co.uk - thanks.

(I think this is only the second time I've posted on here, so if any regulars could let me know if I've broken any forum rules by putting an email address on, then thanks and many apologies!)

What are the odds that a new Red government would move to implement marriage equality?

What are the chances that the Right pulls an upset tomorrow?

I'm very interested to see the results from this election and I hope that the Radikale Venstre can carve out a niche in Denmark that the Greens have in the rest of Europe. Social democrats across Europe need a firm kick to remember who they're serving (hint: not austerity-obsessed technocrats). I supposd that thinking from that perspective I should be cheering for the Unity List but I can't stand gimmicky radical left wing parties that are really concerned with pet issues of the wealthy like feminism and being against globalization. The Socialists rubbed me the wrong way with their capitulation on immigration as well.

the only phrases I know in Danish are "skal" and "jeg vil kneppe dig" but I think politiken.dk is predicting a 92-83 left majority:

http://politiken.dk/politik/meningsmaaleren/

Time for a prediction:

25.0% (2007: 25.5%) A => Socialdemokratiet/Social Democrats
11.2% (2007: 13.0%) F => Socialistisk Folkeparti/Socialist People's Party
10.1% (2007:   5.1%) B => Radikale Venstre/Social Liberal Party
  6.3% (2007:   2.2%) Ø => Enhedslisten/Red-Green Alliance

52.6% (2007: 45.8%) => Left/Opposition Alliance

24.1% (2007: 26.3%) V = Venstre/Liberal Party
11.6% (2007: 13.8%) O = Dansk Folkeparti/Danish People's Party
  5.5% (2007:   2.8%) I = Liberal Alliance
  5.4% (2007: 10.4%) C = Konservative Folkeparti/Conservative People's Party

46.6% (2007: 53.3%) => Right/Government Alliance

0.8% (2007: 0.9%) K = Kristendemokraterne/Christian Democrats

Jens, when can we expect exit polls and first results ?

And do you know a TV channel, where we can watch online ?

As for me, if I were a Danish voter, I would vote:

()

today, mostly because of what TheDeadFlagBlues has said. Enhedslisten & Socialistisk Folkeparti are too radical in my opinion while the Social Democrats are for the status quo. Radikale Venstre is right there in the middle and electable. I hope they get close to 10% or more.

Ah yes predictions.

ABFØ - 50,7%

A - 25,6%
B - 9,7%
F - 10,1
Ø - 5,3%

VCOI - 48,2%

V - 24,7%
C - 5,6%
O - 12,8%
I - 5,1%

As for who I'd personally vote for if I was a Danish voter. Liberal Alliance, while in no way ideal, is definatley the parliamentry party that are closest to my ideological views while at the same time not having an immigration policy to the right of Arizona Republicans.   

First exit polls around 6 pm (yes, before the polling places closes, and no, I don't like it).

Silkeborg South and North usually are the bellweather districts.
http://www.kmdvalg.dk/FV%5C2011/F905.htm
http://www.kmdvalg.dk/FV%5C2011/F906.htm

First reliable forecast is around 10 PM, but if it is a close race, it could be after 12 - and as in 1998 depend on the North Atlantic mandates

You can follow the count on this link: http://www.kmdvalg.dk/fv/2011/ It's the official site, and besides the news outlets, the only online source (no local result reports)

Online telly is a bit harder. You can try http://www.net-tv.tk/ but I don't know if it works. TV-2 NEWS and DR Update (we do love our English names ;) )have coverage all through the night.

I think you mean skål - otherwise you are saying "I must" - I will not translate the other frase, because some kids might read this ;)

humm, Café Latte Liberals ;)

That will happen - especially SF and RV are very determined and will push it through.

Should I make being a clichéd hipster an infractable offence? ;D

http://sputnik.tv2.dk/valg

I guess this will have a live stream for the exit polls.

At least it's working for me, even though I understand absolutely nothing.

;)

May I'm acting dump, but is there a way to follow the counting on a national level, not only for each county?

http://www.dst.dk/valg/Valg1204271/valgopg/valgopg.htm

Danke schön! :)

Exit Poll in 2 minutes.

http://sputnik.tv2.dk/valg/

Here we go ! Good luck left, and may DF burn in hell.

LOL.

90-89 for the Right.

Urgh.

There's also another exit poll from Megafon:

93-86 Left

Razor-thin...

Another exit poll for the Danish Radio has 91-84 for the Left.

Megafon exit poll:

 LA 5,2 (9)

 Kons 6,0 (11)

 Enh. 6,6 (12)

 Radikale 10,0 (18)

 SF 11,5 (20)

 DF 12,2 (21)

 V: 23,6 (41)

 S: 24,6 (43)

And another exit poll by YouGov for MetroXpress:

V. Venstre, Danmarks Liberale Parti            24,6%           43
O. Dansk Folkeparti                                     11,9%           21
I. Liberal Alliance                                          6,8%            12
C. Konservative                                            5,5%            10

A. Socialdemokraterne                              24,1%             42
B. De Radikale                                             9,7%            17
F. SF - Socialistisk Folkeparti                       9,4%            17
Ø. Enhedslisten - De Rød-Grønne                7,6%           13

K. Kristendemokraterne                                0,4%              0

...

89-86 Opposition.

http://www.metroxpress.dk/nyheder/endnu-en-exit-poll-fra-metroxpressyougov-viser-rd-valgsejr/KObkio!WpAE91vk6hbyI/

There is a Danish TV called Sputnik ? Damn commiez. ;D

Anyways, I'm watching this. Understand nothing, but hopefully they'll show some numbers soon. ;)

These are pretty huge results for Ö and I, right?

They won't show any numbers until at least 10pm, because the voting booths are still open until 8pm (for some strange reason).

Ah, OK... So there's nothing to expect unti 22 CEST ? :(

Turnout is projected to be between 85-90%.

:)

17:00 turnout: 60.0%
18:00 turnout: 72.6%

tv 2 exit poll
93 red
86 blue

Freedom country.

and sputnik isn't working right now!!!

Jens, why is it allowed in Denmark to publish exit polls 2 hours before the polls close ?

This turns out to have been an error: http://politiken.dk/politik/ECE1394098/exitpoll-broeler-paa-tv-2-blaa-blok-stod-til-90-mandater/

Shame i'm out tonight. Go Helle!

Bless the lord.

...So who is winning? The Vent Party, or the Socialists?

How long will the counting take?

If I'm understanding the graphics, with 0.7% of the vote counted, it's 93 for the bad guys to 86 for the good guys

That is unless the crazy NAZI party sits with the right.

In that case its 93 for the alliance of bad people and 86 for the alliance with a few really terrible people.

Does anyone understand the Danish vote counting system ?

http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Temaer/2011/Valg/Resultater/resultater.htm

It's like the total number of votes are already in there and they are modified to  become "more correct" with more precincts in ...

weird !

:P

7% counted, Left leads by only 92-87 anymore.

Where else would they sit? ???

(Oh, and four seats are distributed in semi-independent places with completely different party systems. That doesn't stop parties from relying on their support in parliament, but it's worth noting and it's why the numbers at Tender's link only add to 185 seats.)

So it's a projection. *shrug*

huh??!

Down from 93-86 before.

91-88 now, according to www.dr.dk

Actually 88-87, but the Left can apparently count on a 3-1 advantage in Greenland etc.

The Right hat taken the lead now, 88:87. With the Faro and Greenland seats it should still be a majority of 90:89 for the Left.

I'm still seeing 90-85 on http://www.dr.dk/

so, really the big guys (A & V) are flat, no change since last time... the Big losers are K (good) and SF (ouch, looked like such potential); big winners are B and O which are both Left. Interesting that all the movement happened with the smaller parties. Any explanation? did all the SF voters run to O?

1/4 of the vote now counted, the Left is back up 89-86 (without the 4 overseas seats).

The 88:87 for the Right is according to http://politiken.dk/politik/folketingsvalg/kredsresultat/

Now, their site hasn't been updated for 15 minutes or so, still standing at 14% of votes counted. So we should rely on other sources I think.

Use this:

http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Temaer/2011/Valg/Resultater/resultater.htm

It's has already 30% counted.

Yeah I know this site too, and have it tabbed. But thanks.

It's a shame that this page here

http://www.kmdvalg.dk/FV\2011/

doesnt show an "added" national result.

Ah, closeness.

But where hath been counted?

And this site

http://www.dst.dk/valg/Valg1204271/valgopg/valgopg.htm

also suxx, because they are not updating the districts ... :P

The word anymore dosn't make sence there. I never paid attention to the fact that you speak German, but I was about to ask, as I've seen other German speakers make similar errors. The word "now" would fit better"

regardless,


.....................................................................................................................................................................................

90-85 to the Left with over 40% counted.

According to the map on the Danish radio-page, not much of Kopenhagen is in yet. No other region sticks out.

Is that with or without Greenland?

When can we get Greenlandic and Faroese results?

Ah, that probably counts as a good sign.

If numbers add up to 175: Without the North Atlantic seats.
If numbers add up to 179, Faro and Greenland are included. Greenland should elect two Lefties, Faro probably one Lefty and one Righty.

Hooray, Statistics Denmark starts updating the districts to a combined result:

http://www.dst.dk/valg/Valg1204271/valgopg/valgopgOpstTot.htm

All the district that have completed their count yet are from Jutland. With is a good sign for the left as well, I guess.

Minor change now:

88-87 Left, with about 70% in

Interesting:

There are already some districts of Kopenhagen in, and there the Social Democrats are losing about 3-5% and the Venstre is gaining 2-3% ...

Not if these are projections. In that case, it means more uncertainty.

81% in... and it's still 88-87.

Ah, I see now. The dst.dk thing is current partial result, from completed count municipalities only, and of course that is currently quite slanted to the right. Even in the projection though, the left is now barely ahead in mainland Denmark and the Social Democrats are behind Venstre.

Let's better hope that Greenland and Faroer really elects 3 left wingers and 1 right winger and not 2-2.

Because then the Left could risk going 87-88, with the last 10% of precints remaining.

Back to 89-88.

WTF, Venstre at 30% ? :o

Bornholms Storkreds is the first "top level" district that is fully counted.

According to google translate, Politiken is projecting the left coalition to have won (?):

http://politiken.dk/politik/ECE1394013/thorning-vinder-valget---hun-ku-slaa-lars-loekke/

Politiken (BREAKING NEWS): VKO era is over

No, it's a projected 26.5% for the final result.

30% is only for the districts who are already in.

Back down to 88-87 again.

Last legislative election in Greenland...

Socialist Independentists 44%
Social Democrats in all but name 27%
Centrist / Centre-right / white people's party 13%
Conservatives 11%

Yeah, unlikely there's a right-wing seat here.

Then again, anything can happen in the Faeroes - they too have four main parties, sort of representing the same spectrum (but without the racial vote base thing obviously) and they're much closer to even.

Where do you see the projections ? Can't watch the live stream cause I'm already watching the French primary debate.

http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Temaer/2011/Valg/Resultater/resultater.htm

83% in, and it's 89-86 again.

The last couple of times, it was a seat flipping back and forth between B and Liberal Alliance.

It's looking more and more likely that they have this in the bag.

Most of what is left uncounted includes Kopenhagen, Odense, Aalborg and Aarhus - which are the biggest cities.

Fyns Storkreds is now fully counted.

90% and 89-86.

Nordsjællands Storkreds fully in.

Wow, the Social Democrats and the SF are losing almost a combined 20% to the Radikale Venstre and Enhedslisten in the districts of Kopenhagen that are already counted.

The left have grown there. But F have had significant loses there, most of A's loss are from Copenhagen, while they have grown in Odense and rural areas. While RØ have exploded in size.
C have collapsed, I have grown to around 4%, V have grown a little in Copenhagen, O have lost around 1% but that's universal.
The loss for A in Copenhagen is a result of the support of Copenhagen Toll road, while F loss is a result of Ø and R being the new in parties for young voters and academics, and Muslim voters leaving the party (through that barely count for one percent point loss).

Where to?

It make more sense to call it the party of the upper and middle class of the capital no matter race. That they tend to be Danish speakers are another matter.

R (the educated ones), Ø (the poor ones) and I (the rich ones)

Sydjyllands Storkreds fully in.

Sundbyøster

Social Democrats 20.6% (-5.6%)
Unity List 16.2% (+10.9%)
Venstre 15.7% (+1.9%)
Radikale Venstre 15% (+7.2%)
Socialist People's Party 13.2% (-8.8%)

woah

Københavns Omegns Storkreds (Kopenhagen Suburbs) fully counted.

C have just dropped below I.

The Kopenhagen district of Valby has almost the same results.

Yep.

V 47, A 44, O 22, B 16, F 16, Ö 12, I 8, C 8 seems to be set in stone... and then the last seat could go B, I, C or possibly even elsewhere.

Radikale Venstre wins the Kopenhagen district of Falkoner.

Vestjyllands Storkreds now fully counted.

It's actually a Frederiksberg district </pedant>

Only a little bit of Kopenhagen, Aarhus and 4 other districts left.

Radikale Venstre wins Østerbro.

Only 8 districts left.

Brutal result in Nørrebro, where the Enhedslisten not only wins with 27.6%, but it gains 15.3%.

What place is Nørrebro ? The Left gets 79% there (+5).

So, that's gonna be 89-86... Pretty disappointing, yeah. It might have been worse (of course) but still. SD losing groung, SF collapsing for some reason, the xenophobic bastards basically unchanged, the Saxobank-funded neoliberal outfit over 5%... It's quite a shame to see this victory only relies on Radikale Venstre (as much as I like it, it's basically a centrist party that doesn't have much to do with the traditional left).

lol Copenhagen is a great place.

What kind of place do you think? :P

Nørrebro is also known for its poly-cultural society, mostly from Middle-Eastern background. The dynamic, multiethnic main street Nørrebrogade runs through the area, with a multitude of shops and restaurants. One of the main points of interest in the area is historic Assistens Cemetery (Assistens Kirkegård), final resting place of Søren Kierkegaard, Niels Bohr and H.C. Andersen.

Nørrebro is a multiethnic society, and is inhabited by people from all parts of the world. The largest minority groups of people living in Nørrebro are Arabs,Turks, Pakistanis, Bosnians, Somalians, Albanians and many more.

...

OK, that explains a lot.

High population of minorities, students, young childless academics, artists, intellectuals etc

Hah I knew it was going to be closer than it looked, but the Reds still edging out a victory. We'll have to see for how long the Social Democrats will be able to keep Radikale and Enhedslisten together.

Hopefully in the next election we'll see a centre-right majority that doesn't need to depend on DPP support.  

Also Antonio I don't understand why you're sad SD (which have an immigration policy that is more restrictive than Arizona Republicans) loose ground to left-wing parties with principles.

Not going to happen, you just as well hope for the tooth fairy, either you get a left government which want a less restrictive immigration policies (through not by much), or you can get a right government which will keep selling out to DPP for a few tax cuts and a continued centralisation of power.

Turnout is still an amazing 88%, the highest since about 30 years.

Take that Americans and learn !

;)

Rasmussen III has conceded.

Well, the SD's position is certainly driven by cowardice more than anything else (not that I approve of it, to the contrary I'd probably have voted SF this time), but I think a strong social-democratic party is more likely to preserve and maybe expand Welfare State in a coherent and economically effective way. B is socially liberal, open minded and is the party I'm closest to for any issue except economics ; but on economics, it is a center-right party, and that means the economic center-right accounts for almost 60% of the Danish vote, which is quite sad to me.

Less restrictive immigration policy, yeah right. The very important word in what you just said is "want". Your new PM might possibly want less restrictive immigration policy, but it's quite clear she is too afraid to challange the xenophobia, and that very little if anything will be changed on that front.  

For some reason I thought this was an Egyptian Pharaoh

Is Thoring-Schmidt just really tall or is Lökke Rasmussen really short? Looks a bit weird when they're standing next to eachother and she's so much taller.

Hey, a win's a win, you know? Even if not absolutely ideal. It would have been nice if SD and SF had both done better, but one of the worst government's in Europe is out of office, so, yay.

Maps? Yes. Of course. I may have some by the huge constituencies up very soon (just as general test things), but the fun ones will take longer. Maybe tomorrow afternoon or evening? Ideally? We shall see.

Well done Helle! Shame that Venstre is still the largest party, but still, i'm glad

Greenland/Faroe results?

Greenland seems to be:
Siumut 47.46
Inuit Community 35.84
Atassut 8.87
Democrats 5.78

Doesn't seem to be all counted though. Still a shocking huge Siumut victory.

Faroe Islands
                                                  Seats              Change
Union Party 30.8%                        1                  
Social Democrats 21.0%               1                     +1
Republic 19.4%                                                    -1
People's Party 19.0%
Centre Party 4.2%
Self-Government Party 2.3%
Independents 3.3%

Essentially the Social Democratic party gains a seat, and Republic loses a seat.

Edit: Oh, and here's the source
http://www.kringvarp.fo/tidindi/folkatingsval/valurslit (http://www.kringvarp.fo/tidindi/folkatingsval/valurslit)

Thank you!

Wonderful site for results:
http://www.b.dk/valgresultat

which of those parties are right or left?

Simut, Inuit, seem to be Left wing. Atassut is Right wing it seems.

Union is right, Social Democrats left, it seems. Centre, and Peoples Parties seem right wing, while Republic seems left wing.

What about the others?

Results in Indre By-3 Syd which includes Freetown Christiana

Enhl 26.4%
RV 19.3%
S 14.7%
SF 14.1%
V 11.2%
LA 5.4%
DF 4.6%
C 4.1%

Cool place.

You like places who vote for Commies, now?

5-Syd Norrebro district: most leftie district?

Enhl 31.6
RV 18.7
S 16
SF 14.8
V 7.3
DF 4.3
LA 3.9
C 3

Not particularly because of that, but because of the overall vote for the hippie/artsy parties and the uber-low vote for the bad guys.

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The first maps of many.

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The other parties are mostly small liberal or separatist parties. Separatism for Denmark is also a major issue in the Faroes, with Republic and the People's Party being separatist and Union and the Social Democrats being unionist. So this election should be viewed as a vote for unionist parties and against separatist parties.

Ugghhh. Why did Denmark have to go left? :P

So the new PM isn't going to change the right's restrictive immigration policies? Won't that anger some of her base. It seems kind of odd for her not to stand up to the Danish People's Party on that issue. Has the immigration issue fear mongered many people in Denmark that the Social Democrats believe they will have an electoral disaster if they attempt to change it?

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Hope someone finds this interesting.

So are there any specific left-wing proposals we're going to get out of the new government? Like something the previous government had been blocking for years.

Final result:

Eligible voters: 4.080.847
Turnout: 87,71%
Total votes cast: 3.579.121
Blank votes: 22.907
Other invalid votes: 9.780
Total valid votes cast: 3.546.434

948.291   26,7%   47 seats     V. Venstre, Danmarks Liberale Parti
881.534   24,9%   44 seats     A. Socialdemokratiet
436.335   12,3%   22 seats     O. Dansk Folkeparti
336.149     9,5%   17 seats     B. Radikale Venstre
326.118     9,2%   16 seats     F. SF - Socialistisk Folkeparti
236.982     6,7%   12 seats     Ø. Enhedslisten - De Rød-Grønne
176.473     5,0%     9 seats     I. Liberal Alliance
174.563     4,9%     8 seats     C. Det Konservative Folkeparti
   28.157     0,8%                      K. Kristendemokraterne
    1.832     0,1%                      Others

A.B.F.Ø.      =>    50.3%     1.780.783     89 seats
V.O.I.C.K.   =>    49.7%     1.763.819     86 seats

...

Greenland: 2 A.B.F.Ø. supporting MP's elected
Faroer Isl.: 1 A.B.F.Ø., 1 V.O.I.C.K. supporting MP elected

...

Total seats:

A.B.F.Ø.      =>    92 seats
V.O.I.C.K.   =>    87 seats

Yes, yes, I know. I can't, however, feel fully satisfied when 49.7% of the Danish still voted for the nastiest government they've ever had. Why do people always have to be even dumber than predicted ?

Thank you for the awesome maps, anyways. :)

And still, a very important and very bright spot : an epic turnout. As much as I'm not fond of the way Danish people voted, at least they did vote massively and that's what matters most.

Very true. Denmark is neiter a dictatorship, nor does it have mandatory voting, the election takes place on a weekday when most people have to work and the election campaign lasted only 3 weeks, unless the 2 years in the US or 2-3 months in Austria. Considering this, 88% turnout is really outstanding.

Interesting that the three biggest parties parties don't change their seat totals (well, one party lost one seat) but the next five parties by size each change their totals by at least six seats.

Needs to be augmented with party strength maps for all parties represented in parliament. :)

People who're strongly against the immigration rules didn't vote for her and S, they voted for one of the other left-wing parties. Basicly yes, Thoring-Schmidt believe that if she push the immigration issue people will run right back to Venstre and DPP.

BTW, Al your maps are awsome, as always.

Just started work on more detailed maps. A little later than was the general plan, but I ended up having more to do today than planned. Including rescuing a hat from a bus depot.


You are the King of Lurkers :)

All hail King Shilly the Lurker!

Regarding "Gucci Helle":

lol

A zoomable map of Denmark showing individual voting districts and which coalition they voted for as well as - by clicking - the coalitions' numbers in the district - can be found on

dr.dk/Nyheder/Temaer/2011/Valg/2011/09/16/163711.htm

I find it amusingly ironic that one of El Mundo's major titles about the Danish election is the "rebirth of communism" (but the article is quite good)

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/09/16/internacional/1316127636.html

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And you shall receive.
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As always, right click for full size.

This is great - absolut gold. 2 things:
May I use it? I'll give you credit for it of couse
and
Will you do the same for the rest of the country? In case you only can (or will) do a bit, I would very much like to see maps of Københavns Omegns Storkreds (Suburbian Copenhagen) and Nordsjællands Storkreds (North Sealand)

Feel free!

Was anyone else surprised to learn that Denmark hasn't had a female PM before?

Though of course, they've always seemed -- to me anyways -- like the least "Scandinavian" Scandinavian country.

Heh.  If anyone is the least bit interested in an "American-style right-winger's" opinion, I'm not entirely displeased with the results.  It seems that the social-liberal party is the king-maker in this election cycle, and they are one of the three long-established Danish parties I would actually vote for.

I love you. In an intensely physical but nonetheless platonic way.

Sweden hasn't had a female PM yet either.

Wonderful maps :)

Can anyone explain why it is that in Danish elections Copenhagen seems vote left compared to the rest of Denmark while innSweden it's the exact opposite and Stockholm is a bit stronghold for the right compared to the rest of the country (I don't know how Oslo is vis a vis Norway)

This gets brought up a lot, but the answer (of course) is that Denmark is not Sweden and Stockholm is not Copenhagen. Or, really, it's to do with historic patterns of industrialisation (I don't think Stockholm was ever really an industrial city, not even in the way that London was - though that's not the same as saying it had no industry), class, wealth and so on, as well as political traditions; Copenhagen city has been run by the left for over a hundred years, while Stockholm has swung between the right and the left on a fairly regular basis (and this was even the case when the Social Democrats were absolutely dominant nationally in the 50s and 60s). These things tend to reinforce themselves.

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The party vote maps will come in two seats (Left and Right) but will be posted at the same time. Will take longer because I have to work out the keys.

Well what ever the reason - I've always loved Copenhagen as a city (partly because it was actually the first European city I ever visited on a family trip when I was 8 - and needless to say at that age all I cared about was Tivoli Gardens and the mermaid and the pastries!) and their voting pattern is now one more reason to love it.

Now, I can't get this bloody tune out of my mind!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMbbg0k4Xeo&feature=related

Are all of these districts the same size population?

Not the same sieze, they're local city/community council districs, so they vary quite a bit.   

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For bigger images, the magic of right click remains the best option.

What's the issue with that 3-4 districts in western mid Jutland? They really stick out on the A, V, K maps.

<3

You can think so if you have a superficial knowledge about how the Danish SD works. Yes the 24 year rule won't be removed*, but the point system will in worst case be replaced with a significant less extreme one, or be removed completely, giving access to any spouse in marriage where both are above 24. The first day after the election the entire left already said even before the government negotiation, that the increased border control will be dropped. Beside that the entire left support a losening of the asylum and immigration rules and that was before and up to the election.
I know it's a popular excuse among some rightwingers to excuse their cooperation with DPP, with SD would behave just as badly, but it's just a bad excuse. SD won't continue the heartless politic of the former government, neither will it open the borders up, it will push pragmatic policies toward immigration. As such some will find it to harsh, but it's ridiculous to compare it to the last 10 year of xenophobia.

*Mostly because it has been a enormous success, Muslim young womens has gone from the least educated group to the most, we have also seen a increase in the number of them on the labour market. 

The right have traditional been split in the urban Conservative and the rural Venstre, the former more or less set up a autocratic regime in the late 19th century, which meant that they lost legitimacy and slowly collapsed. That together with the industrialisation was mostly focused on Copenhagen and a few other major cities lead to Social Democratic dominance in the major cities. the conservative stayed a viable force in the cities to the last two decades, where infighting, Venstre's takeover of their main policies and Venstre's move into the cities have slowly crushed them, and left them as the low tax party*.
Unless they find a empty niche which doesn't alienate their voters the descline of the party will likely continue. But they have done so before, in the 70ties they were in many ways the same situation as now, and they succedd in not only returning to power, but also get their best results in over a century and making their leader a fondly remembered PM.

*and that collapsed in this election with Liberal Alliance being even more agressive tax cut party, leaving them with only party loyalty as a reason to vote for them.

It will also probably be difficult, and not a priority for Helle to change the Danish immigration system because the SD has such a slim coalition in parliament. Only a few mps who become angered by a perceived loosening of immigration rules, could bring down the government with a vote of no confidence with Venstre and the DPP. I'm not an expert on Danish politics, but it does seem like Denmark has one of the strongest xenophobic sentiments in Europe right now if the DPP's success is anything to go by.

Honestly I have a hard time taking that sentiment seriously. PVV get better results in Netherlands, the Progress Party better in Norway. The reason for DPP success in getting influence is the same as the Norwegian Progress Party, it's stable, it get rid of the worst lunatics, when they open their mouth and it play after the parliamential rules.

And still polls far less than the openly fascist FN.

Helle's message to British Labour

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8JKTfLoD2s

The negotiation has been finished
Here's the new government.


http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1410871/new-govt--the-ministerial-list/


The surprise is how weak posts the Social Liberals got (beside Margrethe Vestager), but it seem to have been the price for SD and SPP compromises on taxation. Beside that SPP have gotten some surprising heavy posts, through the foreign ministry has been weaken. But it seem to have benefitted Villy Søvndal, who has been left with the more ideological aspect of foreign policy, while the more practical and pragmatic aspect has been left to the Export and Foreign Trade Minister, the Development Minister and the Europe Minister.

Which is the more powerful/influencial out of Economy Minister or Finance Minister?

Finance Minister. In many way the difference can be described more or less as the Finance Ministry makes the annual budget, while the Economy Ministry ensure that the former has used the right numbers. So the Economy Ministry is more or less a internal control ministry with little external influence.

After I looked close on the new ministriesm, it seem that the Ministry of Economy has been  significant strengthen, it has taken over the financial ministy's prognose and statistic departments. That mean that the two ministries are around equally strong. 

http://drugi.euractiv.com/elections/denmark-unpopular-government-col-news-513795

Missed this one.

The Red-Greens are closing in on the Social Democrats in the polls and both are dangerously close to the People's Party. What the hell's been going on in Denmark for the new government to have become so hated, so fast? The right already took to flack for the Eurozone crisis here or is it genuinely just leftist voters getting depressed by austerity from a leftist government?

Poor Gucci Helle, I still love you.

It seems pretty self-explanatory to me. The left's discontent across the EU with mainstream social democratic parties who are in power has been universal.

Helle's poor polling numbers are nothing new. She turned out to be a failure even faster than I expected her to. Intresting to hear she's managed to loose the Red-Green Alliance though. I had read she was having problems making her coalition-partners get along, but I thought a potential government collapse was more unlikly. The prospect of new elections in Denmark already this year are exciting though.

Still doubt the alliance will actually vote down the government in the end. New elections mean the return of a burgious government, and that's not something the alliance wants.   

Doesn't the Alliance also view the current government as bourgeois?

To a certain extent I'm sure they do. But I'm sure Ö still see them as the less evil alternative.
A lot of left-winger's will call out Obama for being a worthless corporate sell-out, but they still wouldn't want to switch him for Romney.

I believe Helle is safe for now, but things are going to get a lot harder for her.


I guess I got my question from election night answered btw.

But left-wingers should not be too sad though. There are some breaking Danish political news we can all enjoy.

Pia Kjærsgaard is stepping down as leader of the Danish People's Party after 17 years.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHJoj9IqeKg)

Couldn't find any source in English yet, but here's a Swedish article from SvT (http://www.svt.se/nyheter/varlden/pia-kj-rsgaard-har-fatt-nog).

EDIT: And here's a more extensive Danish article from Politiken. (http://politiken.dk/politik/ECE1713573/pia-kjaersgaard-stopper-som-formand-for-df/)

(And according to the poll next to that article VBIC would get 89 seats if an election was held today, mening there would be a theoretical possibility of a centre-right government without support from the Danish People's Party) 

Thank God for small favours. :D

The last opinion poll from Megafon is both bad and good news, it show that the government would fall if there was a election, but at the same time all three parties of the government has increased their mandates, through Unity List has lost a few percent over the summer. This will remove much of the infighting in the government, while Unity List which have attacted the government over the summer may tone down the rethoric.

As for Pia Kjærsgaard, this is a big thing as much as I dislike her, she has been  a great politician and party leader, she has transformed a small splinter group from a deeply irrelevant and moribund party (the progess party) into a major force in Danish politic, she has dominated Danish politic from 1997-2007 and even after that she was a force to fear. While she was not the European right wing populist who delivered the best result, she still stand head and shoulders above her fellows around Europe, she has created a party with incredible staying power with a clear and stable succession. While her success had a lot to do with luck as she created a xenophobic party just before the tabloid Extra Bladet started a anti-immigrant campaign (ironic after the former Conservative leader Hans Engell became Editor-in-Chief in 2000, the newpaper began a move to the left and dropped its anti-immigrant focus). Of course this was only partly accidental, as the Nyrup government Three Monkey (don't look, hear or ask) policy, had created a fertile ground for both the DPP and the campaign.
But what really made her a giant among xenophobes was her pragmatism, she made a deal with Anders Fogh Rasmussen, where she made him PM against him pushing the Danish immigration policy to the hard right, while keeping economic keeping the status quo of the last Nyrup years.  Of course if Fogh had not been a principleless spineless sell-out, who cared more about his own career than his country this would never have been possible. In fact her greatest luck was that Uffe Ellemand didn't win the election in 1997 as it would have kept DPP from ever getting the influence it got (Uffe and Pia hate each other).
But at the same time she has also been willing to moderate herself, many say that the tone in Danish immigration policy has become uglier over the last ten years, and to some degree other parties has adopted a harder tone, but people also forget how ugly the tone was between 1997-2001 and the terrible thing DDP said, no leading politicians of DPP say thing so brutal anymore, and on the other side the left don't spit after DPP anymore, so in many ways the tone in the immigration debate, while still hard, has become civilised, it has just become another issue to discuss and not the difference between good and evil politicians.

As the new leader of DPP Kristian Thulesen Dahl (Tulle), he has been the crown prince and one of the members of the ruling triad in DPP (the last being Peter Skaarup). But if Pia is a firebreather Tulle is more shy, calm and diplomatic, he is a great negotiater and he understand economics. Economic he is rather moderate, but on the immigration issue and want some degree of social justice (for poor Danes of course) , Pia and he agrees, but at the same time he wish to continue the evolution of DPP into a real party rather than just a anti-immigration movement, this may mean that he may make deals with government and make deals which are primary economic. In the long term he hope to make DPP into the (European-style) conservative party.

Here's the latest numbers

Party letter - Party name; % of votes at election 2011; % of votes now

A - Socialdemokraterne/Social Democrats; 24.8 %; 18.9 %
B - Det Radikale Venstre/Social Liberal Party; 9.5 %; 9.4 %
C - Det Konservative Folkeparti/Conservative People's Party; 4.9 %; 4.2 %
F - Socialistisk Folkeparti/Socialist People's Party; 9.2 %; 5.9 %
I - Liberal Alliance/Liberal Alliance; 5.0 %; 4.7 %
K - Kristendemokraterne/Christian Democrats; 0.8 %; 0.6 %
O - Dansk Folkeparti/Danish People's Party; 12.3 %; 13.9 %
V - Venstre/Liberals; 26.7 %; 32.7 %
Ø - Enhedslisten/The Unity List - The Red-Green Alliance; 6.7; 9.7 %

Well, the government is loosing voters in both directions, and the word løftebrud (breach of faith) continues to stick to them.

The Government, mainly the Social Democrats, have lost voters to the opposition, primarily the Liberals and Danish People's Party. One of the main reasons is that SD had to accept the sharp reduction of the efterløn (an early retirement pay) that they had campagined vigorously against in the election, if they were to agree on a coalition with the Social Liberal Party. They won some of the decisive votes at the election due to fighting against this reduction, and those voters have now returning to the opposition parties. Other reasons might be the slight loosening up of the immigration policy, general mistrust as the government breached a number of election promises, and the fact that unemployment hasn't fallen.

The Social Democrats and Socialist People's Party are bleeding voters to the left - i.e. the Red-Green Alliance. This, as you suggest, ofc has something to do with austerity measures being driven through by the Government. But the main reason is the tax reform that the Government made with the Liberals and the Conservatives. The main proponents of this reform was raising the limit that makes you pay the top tax rate, allowing a bigger tax allowance for people in employment, and reducing state (unemployment, early retirement, etc.) benefits with 5 % (phased in until 2023). Especially the latter was difficult to defend for the SPP, and two of their MP's refused to vote for the reform. One of them was whipped back into order, but the other one (Özlem Cekic) kept her resistance. She was subsequently removed of all her posts in the party, and is not allowed to speak on the party's behalf. The Red-Green Alliance was furious about the reform; not only because of the content they declared unfair and anti-social, but also because they had negiotated with the government about a tax reform as well. They even thought that they had agreed on a reform that was somewhat leftier, but then the government chose to make the deal with the opposition instead.

This severely damaged the relationship between the Red-Green Alliance and the government. The Red-Green Alliance's spokesperson Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen claimed that their were in opposition to the Government's economic policy, and that they do not feel obliged to support any of the Government's measures. This makes the up-coming budget negotiations extremely exciting. Few believe that the Red-Green Alliance will make the Government collapse, as this will certainly allow the right wing to regain power, but it will be difficult for the party to the accept a budget of mainly liberal economic policy. The Government could make some concessions, but the Social Liberal Party won't allow too many of those. The Government could make a deal about the budget with some of the opposition parties, but then they will have to make a lot of concessions that could ultimately break the Government from within. If the opposition does not get a high number of concessions, they will be more than happy to let the Government fall as they would currently win a landslide victory at an election.

Any chance of a leadership challenge to Helle if the Social Democrats' poll numbers keep falling like this?

That would be very unlikely, I reckon. The incumbent prime minister is virtually never challenged. If they fell behind the Red-Green Alliance in the polls or came very close at doing that, then perhaps she would be challenged, but I still wouldn't consider it likely too happen. Even the SPP leader Villy Søvndal, whose party's crisis seems slighty bigger, has not been challenged, and he was widely supported at their latest party conference.

If Helle loses an election, then of course it's another talk. Then it's very likely that she will be challenged, and the question would be whether she would want to continue as party leader. Right now the most likely candidates to lead the Social Democrats after Helle would probably be one of these three:

Mette Frederiksen, MP 2011- and currently Minister of Employment
She used to be considered a part of the left wing of the party, which was non-flatteringly referred to as the Hugo Chavez-fraction, but has moved towards more centrist position in recent years, especially after becoming minister. She's the second-most popular minister, Helle btw is nr. 21, and has managed to appear compassionate while also being able to make tough decisions, and agree on reforms with the opposition

Nicolai Wammen, MP 2001-2005, mayor of Aarhus 2006-2011, MP 2011- and currently Minister for European Affairs. He is considered quite centrist and could be the compromise candidate between the two wings. He was, however, awarded the unfavourable post as Minister for European Affairs which brings him little media attention, especially as the Danish presidency has ended and the opt-out referendums has been indefinitely postponed. He was probably given this low-profile job because he was considered the frontrunner to challenge Helle if she had lost the 2011 election; rumours said that he had begun inquiring for support in the party, so he was considered a threat and somewhat illoyal.

Nick Hækkerup, mayor of Hillerød 2000-2007, MP 2007- and currently Minister of Defence.
He is the candidate from the right-wing of the party, like Helle,  and is a part of the Hækkerup-family who have had several influential members of the Social Democrats for generations. He had a great relationsship with the business community when he was mayor.

Of course a relatively unknown member of the party could also emerge, much like Helle herself did when she won the leadership election in 2005.

I can apparently not include links in my post, but if you search google for "Villy-effekten er stendød" then the first article appearing from MetroExpress, provides you with the list of ministers ranked according to popularity.

Looking at those polling figures/changes it seems that beyond some movement (perhaps even polarisation) on the Left (F > Ø) and Right (C, I, K > O) the real movement is a 6% swing from A > V.

The major movement on the left is undoubtedly from F to Ø; at the election in 2011 F had lost just above 2 % of the votes to Ø since the 2007 election. This movement seems to have continued, and accelerated after the aforementioned tax reform. Some of A's voters are moving to Ø as well, 1 % of the electorate moved from A to Ø at the 2011 election, and my guess would be that around 1 % further has made that move now.

I'm not sure, however, that your movement on the right is correct. O lost a bit above 1 % to A at the 2011 election, probably mainly because O had agree to drastically reduce the efterløn scheme. But since A agreed to that reform after the election, my guess is that these voters have returned to O, maybe even with some interest. O could have pinched some voters from C in addition to the 0.5 % they took at the election, but I don't think that O has picked up many voters from K or I. I't probably mainly V who has picked up votes from the other right-wing parties; they reason why V gained one mandate in the 2011 election was that they gained just above 2 % from C, which more than covered the losses they made to other parties, so I imagine that V has kept on eating C.

V has probably picked up 4 % or so from A, which is a quite massive swing. I listed some of the reasons for that in the post with the poll numbers. The swing has been particularly significant among working class voters. At the 2011 election A received 30.5 of the working class vote, while V received 23.0 %. These numbers are now more than reversed: V receive 33.4 %, while A % only receive 19.6 %.

Per Ørum Jørgensen, leader of the Christian Democrats, has withdrawn from the party because the party members in his constituency refused to nominate him for the leadership election at the party conference next month. Jørgensen left the Conservatives in 2010 to join the Christian Democrats, and led the party in the 2011 election campaign. The party received 0.8 %, and was quite far from reaching the 2 % required for entrance into Folketinget. The party hoped to gain a constituency mandate in the Westernmost multi-member constituency, but 2.9 % of the votes in Vestjylland (Western Jutland), Jørgensen's constituency, was not enough either.

The party members in his constituency were disappointed with his decision to move to Copenhagen, and thereby giving up his candidacies for the regional and municipal elections in Vestjylland next year; at least in the latter he stood a decent chance of being elected. They also say that they prefer a leader who could provide "a stronger and more stable internal communication". Furthermore, some of the hard-core Christians disapproved of the fact that he is getting re-married and this with a woman who already has two children from a former marriage.

It will be interesting to see what strategy the Christian Democrats will pursue now, as that has shifted quite notable a few times in the last ten years. The party started out in 1970 to oppose the recently passed liberalization of restrictions on pornography and the legalization of abortion. They entered parliament in the Earthquake election of 1973. Soon they broadened their programme to include environmental protection, a high degree of development aid, a centrist economic policy and support for the nucleus family. They usually received between 2 and 3 % of the votes, with 5,3 % in 1974 as the peak, which kept them continuously in the Folketing between 1973-1994, and participated in centre-right governments from 1982-1988, and a centre-left government from 1993-1994. But some of their policies were increasingly picked up by other parties, so they had some difficulties in retaining the voter share, and they just failed to reach the 2 % threshold at the 1994 election.

In the following years the pursued a more agrarian policy which allowed them to pick up voters as the traditional agrarian party, the Liberals, was in the process of becoming a broader party. This allowed the Christian party to re-enter parliament in 1998, and pass the threshold in 2001 as well. However, they barely had any influence on legislation while the Liberals re-gained some trust in agrarian areas, so they failed to achieve representation in parliament at the 2005-election. So in the 2007 election they had made a rather radical shift towards the left; they supported Thorning-Schmidt as PM, were a loud opponent of the Danish People Party, and pursued more leftish economic policies. But they only received 0.9 %; their worst result ever. From 2008-2010 they returned to the beginning with a quite right-winged religious leader, until Jørgensen took over the party. In the 2011 election he emphasized a sound economic policy, more support for the outskirts of Denmark and wanted Lars Løkke Rasmussen as PM.

So the question is whether they go left, right or religious; all roads they have tried in recent years. But no matter which road they take, it will be difficult for them to keep the party united and to pass the threshold at the next Folketing election.

Very informative. Thanks, Diouf.

Very good Diouf. Although the English term for jordskredsvalg would be land-slide election not earth quake election.

Nice that there are actually things happening on the political scene in Denmark. The politics on this side of Öresund are really uneventful, with the exception of the recent death of a 24-year-old MP.

I mainly understand land-slide election as a big win for a certain party or block, like the Tony Blair victory of 1997, which was not what happened in 1973 so I thought that term could add some confusion. I know Earthquake election is not a really good term, but it was difficult to find a term that covered the massive upheaval of the political system without being a significant shift to one side or the other politically. The main story of the 1973 election was that the four old parties dropped from a total of 84 % of the votes to 58,3 %, and the number of parties represented in Folketinget was doubled from five to ten.

Yes, Danish politics is quite eventful at the moment. The very exciting negotiations about the budget 2013 is starting, and a judicial commission has begun investegating the possible leaks and abuse of power regarding Thorning-Schmidt's tax case. Today another very interesting thing happened, at least in terms of personnel, which I will make a post about in a very short time.

Yeah, 'landslide' as a term doesn't really cover that. Earthquake is probably closer, though would usually be preceded with 'political'.

Villy Søvndal has announced that he is stepping down as leader of the Socialist People's Party, but he will stay as Minister for Foreign Affairs. The 18 members of the SPP Executive Committee will meet on Monday to decide on a deadline for SPP members to announce their candidacy as leader. If only one candidate is running, then he/she can simply be confirmed leader by a majority of the member in the Executive Committee. But in the far more likely scenario with more than one candidate, then there will be some sort of a broader election among the party members. If there are exactly two candidates then there will be a ballot among all members straight away, but if there's more than two candidates then an extraordinary party conference must be held in order to narrow the list down to two candidates, and then a ballot will be held with those two candidates.

Basically, there are two huge fractions and a smaller one in the party. The new leader will definitely be a member of one of the two big fractions, but if the election gets close then the small fraction could cast the deciding votes.

Villy Søvndal and his loyal deputy, Minister for Taxation Thor Möger Pedersen, belong to the so called "Workerite" fraction. They were the ones who pulled the party into the close cooperation with the Social Democrats, and they want the party to be a rather broad party of workers/employees. They have criticized the two other fractions of the party for having too much focus on academics and "clients" (people on state benefits) respectively. Möger Pedersen could have been the logical heir, but he has received a lot of criticism; when people wanted to attack the right-drift of the party without attacking their leader, they fired their bullets at him instead. Furthermore, he was in charge of negotiations on the tax reform that caused a rather big internal uproar and, to some extent, an exodus towards the Red-Green Alliance. So their candidate will most likely be Minister for Health and Prevention Astrid Krag.

The other big fraction is the "Green and Europeans", and consists of a lot of academics and environmentalists. Their emphasis is on environmental policy and a positive attitude towards the EU, but they have also broadly accepted the right-turn of the party. They have two obvious candidates: Minister for the Environment Ida Auken and Minister for Trade and Investment (export in daily terms) Pia Olsen Dyhr. Olsen Dyhr lost the leadership election against Søvndal in 2005, and seems less popular in the party and the population than Auken. One of these might not run for leader, and support the other, or they could both run, and then one of them will go through to the ballot against Astrid Krag.

The small, but potentially influential, fraction is the left-wing of the party, which among others include rebel MP Özlem Cekic. They have been quite outspoken in their criticism when they think the party has moved too far towards the right on economic and value questions. Therefore the two other fractions of the party have tried to keep them away from influential positions in the party, and no one from this fraction is minister.

I stand corrected on the earth quake thing then. :)

Intresting that Sövndal is stepping down. That makes it leadership switches in two parties in a short period. Very intresting. Was this brought on by some internal crtisism or conflict or as with Kjearsgaard, that he simply wished to retire?

Also Diouf, if you don't mind me asking, where do you stand politically?

   

Well, he has been critized by the left-wing fraction, especially since the polling numbers started to decline. But they were never really close at mounting a real challenge to him, as the two big fractions were united in their support to the movement towards the centre, and the participation in government. So it was basically his own wish to retire, and he probably hopes that a new leader can bring them some new energy and improve their polling numbers. He said that he already knew at the 2011 election that it would be his last as a leader, but he wanted to give the party some time to get used to being in government before stepping down.

Somewhere on the right, basically. Voted for Lykke Friis, (now former) Minister for Climate and Energy and equal rights, from the Liberals at the 2011 election. At the regional election next year I will probably vote for the Christian Democrats or the Joint Western List; i.e. whatever de-centralizing party/list that runs. Not completely sure at municipial and European election yet, currently leaning towards Liberals at the former and Conservatives at the latter.

The deadline has just run out for SPP members to announce their leader candidacy. Two candidates have decided to run: Astrid Krag and Annette Vilhelmsen. From September 23 to September 30 the two candidates will participate in debates around the country in the local SPP branches. The 16.000 party members will then have the chance to vote from October 1 until October 11, and on October 13 the winner will be announced on a party conference.

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Astrid Krag is 29 years old, and is currently a MP and Minister for Health and Prevention. She studied Political Science but never finished. From 2005-2007 she was leader of the SPP Youth, and in November 2007 she was elected to parliament for the first time. She definitely belongs to the "workerite" fraction of the party which has tried to make the party ready for government by moving it closer towards the Social Democrats. When she was spokesperson for immigration she symbolized just that as she obviously pursued a stricter immigration policy than the party had been used to. However, her first year as a minister hasn't been very impressing; she has mostly been faceless and has not launched new ideas/initiatives etc. She has, admittedly, been on maternity leave in three months but she could still have been far more visible. She was placed 13 out of 23 at the latest list of minister popularity.

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Annette Vilhelmsen is 52 years old, and a MP. She was a teacher from 1983 until 2001; in 2001 she finished her master in education/pedagogy. Since then she has worked as consultant and leader of a knowledge center. From 2001-2011 she was a member of the municipality council in Kerteminde, and in 2011 she was elected to the Folketing. Few people knew of her outside of Funen before she decided to run as a leader but it seems clear that she belongs to the left wing of the party.

This is to a quite extreme degree a referendum on the current leadership of the party. Out of the 16 MPs, Krag is supported by 6 members; they include the four remaining ministers and the political spokesperson. The non-MP Minister of Taxation Thor Möger Pedersen, who is often depicted as the dark puppeteer behind many SPP decisions, also supports Krag together with the party's two MEPs and highly ranked councillors in Aarhus, Odense and Copenhagen.
Vilhelmsen's support in the higher ranks of the party is broader but less prominent. She is supported by 7 MPs who are rebels, backbenchers, and/or former high ranked members. Furthermore, a newspaper asked the members of the Executive Committee and the local party leaders who they preferred. Only 64 out of 135 answered, but 53 % of those 64 preferred Vilhelmsen while only 27 % preferred Krag. 20 % had not made up their mind yet.

If Krag is elected then SPP will more or less continue with the same strategy. If Vilhelmsen is elected, however, the party will retract, at least somewhat, towards the left. This will probably help SPP to regain some of their lost voters but it will also strain the relationship between the governing parties further.

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The last SPP leadership debate was held today in Nørrebro in inner Copenhagen. The bookies and many pundits consider Vilhelmsen the favourite after a poll among party leaders at the lowest unit level. 238 out of 395 answered the newspaper Berlingske, and 59 % of them supported Vilhelmsen while 30 % supported Krag. But an important point to remember is that SPP's membership figures surged after Søvndal's takeover from 8,213 in 2005 to 17,883 in 2010. And despite a decline to around 15,600 today, this is a lot of members who joined under Søvndal's reign and must be somewhat more loyal towards his wing than longtime members. The big question is whether these new and mainly young members are still enthusiastic enough about Søvndal's project to turn out in force and vote for Astrid Krag.

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In other news, the Conservatives are having their party conference and are trying to brand themselves as the most borgerlige (bürgerlich, bourgeois) party - i.e. combining a liberal economic policy with traditional right-wing/conservative values. And while that should clearly differentiate them from the Liberal Alliance and the Danish People's Party, the difficult part is how they can differ from the Liberals while also regaining their former voters from that party. They are trying to achieve that by distancing themselves from the Social Liberal party, and by attacking the Liberals for their attitude towards economic reform when they were in government together.

The mass exodus from the Conservatives to the Liberals accelerated during the 2011 election when Conservative leader Lars Barfoed made an agreement of cooperation across the middle with Social Liberal leader Margrethe Vestager. The agreement was little else than fine words but many Conservative voters feared that the party was becoming centrist and moving towards the Social Liberals, so they voted for the Liberals instead. The party has tried to regain those voters at this conference by lambasting the social liberal and social constructivist policies of the Social Liberal party in a so massive way that it almost resembled the DPP conference held a few weeks ago.

Party leader Lars Barfoed also attacked the Liberals for their reluctance to economic reforms during much of their time together in government from 2001-2011. The Conservatives wanted reforms of taxation, unemployment benefits, efterløn ( early pension scheme) etc. but the Liberals rejected them or agreed to watered-down proposals only. When the Liberals finally agreed to some of those reforms in 2010/2011 they took much of the credit for them. Barfoed also claimed that he facilitated the negotiations on the recent tax reform, so that the government made it with the right-winged parties instead of the Red-Green Alliance.

A average polling from Berlingske after a couple of polls have been published in the last days.

A Social Democrats                        18.2 % 32 seats
B Social Liberal Party                      8.7  % 15 seats
C Conservative People's Party          3.9   % 7 seats
F Socialist People's Party                6.5 %   11 seats
I Liberal Alliance                            4.9 %    9 seats
K Christian Democrats                     0.5 %    0 seats
O Danish People's Party                   14.2 % 25 seats
V Liberals                                      33.2 %  58 seats
Ø Red-Green Alliance                       9.9 %   18 seats

As this is without the North Atlantic seats, 88 seats are required to have a majority. Brackets explains movement since 2011 election

Current government (A+B+F)  58 seats (-19 seats)
Liberals alone (V)  58 seats (+11)
Current majority (A+B+F+Ø) 76 seats (-13)
2001-2011 majority (V+C+O) 90 seats (+13)
Liberal economic majority (V+C+I+B) 89 seats (+8)


The budget negotiations have largely stalled due to the ongoing leadership election in SPP. No matter who wins, we will probably see a Cabinet reshuffle shortly after. Krag would want to get a better post than Minister of Health and Prevention where she will always have to answer for mistakes made somewhere in the health Service. Vilhelmsen will of course want a minister post for herself, but will probably also drag one or two of her supporters into the government.

The easy sacrifice for both candidates will be Minister for Business and Growth Ole Sohn who is haunted by his past. The 58-year-old Sohn, who has actually done rather well as minister, was leader of the Communist Party from 1987 to 1991. Stories about how the Soviet Union funded the Communist Party have penetrated the media since then, and it has become clear that they certainly did it by overpaying the Communist Party's printing house. Sohn has admitted that, but has claimed that he did not take any direct support from Soviet officials and that he tried to stop the indirect support. But a few times in the last year or so documents have suggested otherwise so his personal credibility has been tarnished which makes it harder for him to get good publicity and to set an agenda.

Unlike Krag, Vilhelmsen has not promised that Søvndal will be allowed to continue as Minister for Foreign Affairs but I think its unlikely that she dumps him. If she wants to make a significant dissociation to the ancien régime, then she could remove the young Minister of Taxation Thor Möger Pedersen, who is quite unpopular in the SPP support base. The Social Democrats and the Social Liberal Party could use the opportunity to change some ministers themselves, but I don't think they will do that, even though the former has a few rather unpopular ministers as well.

Today SPP Minister for Business and Growth Ole Sohn announced that he's not going to run in the next general election. Therefore he advices the new SPP leader, who will be announced tomorrow, to replace him. Both leadership candidates would probably have replaced him anyway so in this way he leaves government before being kicked out of the it.

Sohn started his career as a ship's cook and an earth and concrete worker. He quickly rose through the ranks in the local union for semiskilled workers which he led from 1977-1987 and in the Communist Party where he joined the central committee in 1981 and led the party from 1987 to 1991. The party hadn't been represented in parliament since 1979, and was torn apart by the disagreements between hardline communists and Gorbachev sympathizers like Sohn. So shortly after most of the far-left parties united in the Red-Green Alliance, Sohn joined the Socialist People's Party. He has been a MP since 1998 and since Søvndal won the leadership election in 2005, he has been one of the most influential members of the party.

Hi Diouf

Nice to see a fellow Danish political geek on the board!

But this thread is on the  International election board and  is meant to be about the Danish election in 2011 solely, all the stuff about Danish politics in general should be on the International general board. I have bumped the Great Nordic thread for you.

Hi

I will stop writing too much about general issues and events, but I like how the Austrian thread also includes some other important political events. I would say that many of my posts in this thread have been on polls, trying to explain some of the movements, and the SPP leadership election which I think is justifiable. I didn't think a new thread should be made just to the SPP leadership election, so I figured it could be in this thread. Maybe it could be renamed to include something with aftermath?

You dont need to create a new thread. We have the Great Nordic Thread on the Interntional General board for news on politics in the Nordic countries.
It would be a shame if you stopped writing about general developments. Just do it on the proper board - International general.

Yeah don't by any means stop giving us all this valuable information ! Nordic thread in International discussion seems fine.