Denmark Parliamentary Election - June 18, 2015

[SATW]

welp, sad that Thorning-Schimdt won't be Prime Minister anymore That being said, I'm sure I have more in common with Venstre's platform, so not totally upset.

[Silent Hunter]

So despite topping the poll and increasing her vote share, she ends up resigning. That seems non-sensical to me.

[eric82oslo]

So despite topping the poll and increasing her vote share, she ends up resigning. That seems non-sensical to me.

Maybe she just wanted to spend more time with her husband (and family). Now she can move to London without regrets.

[Viewfromthenorth]

So despite topping the poll and increasing her vote share, she ends up resigning. That seems non-sensical to me.

She's been party leader for a decade, and the majority of that time has been in opposition. She may simply not be in the mood for another period leading the party out of government. HTS has always struck me as less of a party manager.

[Viewfromthenorth]

This map really tells an important part of the story. Last time around, a bunch of the smaller cities like Randers and Esbjerg were colored red. At this point, it's only Copenhagen+western suburbs, Århus, Odense and half of Aalborg, plus a couple random rural municipalities.

Obviously, the Social Democrats did well in most of these places, but it seems that their coalition partners really collapsed in mid-sized Denmark.

[Diouf]

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

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

[Viewfromthenorth]

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

[Diouf]

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

[Diouf]

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

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

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

[Diouf]

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

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

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

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh great, another sh*tty election result.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lovely maps Hash; it means I get an excuse to just go and make party vote ones straight off.

Oh great, another sh*tty election result.

Well yes. But the good news is that it's actually quite quite sh!tty for the winners as well.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

I assume Helle will find some position in Brussels now?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Maybe she can run for Cynon Valley when Ann Clwyd stands down for real next time?

[Diouf]

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Maps are coming along nicely.

[Diouf]

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

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

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


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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Maps of the Left parties will be either later this evening or some time tomorrow.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

[Viewfromthenorth]

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

[Diouf]

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

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

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

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

[ingemann]

So why isn't a DPP-led government considered possible?

Was about to ask the same thing. It just seems completely nonsensical to me how the third place party that just took an absolute shellacking would get to form government...

Viewfromthenorth and sibboleth have come with some of explanation for this, and they're correct. But there's one more this is much more simple. If you want to become PM in Denmark you need to be able to count to 90. DPP doesn't have 90 MP supporting Thulesen Dahl as PM (LA and C won't support him), as such it doesn't matter how many mandates they have compared to V or whether DPP or V did best in the election.

[ingemann]

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

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

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

I would also say that's there's also important style difference, the Red-Greens are mostly against things, there's really not a lot of ideological creativity among them, at least not ones which reach out to a broader audience. To be completely brutal and use a little hyperbole, outside the environment, the Red-Greens have not had one new idea since the 80ties.

The Alternative on the other hand lack the ideological tradition and history of the Red-Greens, but they're for new things, they have new ideas and they're not afraid to talk about them. While the Red-Green tend to be very silent about some of their ideological baggage.
 

[Diouf]

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

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

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

[Diouf]

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