Denmark Parliamentary Election - June 18, 2015

[politicus]

Despite her side consistently trailing the opposition in the polls the leader of Denmark's (nominally) centre-left government Helle Thorning-Schmidt will have to call an election to the Folketing somewhere before mid September 2015. Given Danish voters notorious animosity to anything political interfering with their summer holidays (incl. the planning of them) and a desire not to appear too desperate and clingy it's most likely the election will be held before mid June.

179 seats will be elected using PR with a 2% threshold.

There are 175 seats for Denmark and two for each of the two autonomous countries in the North Atlantic - Greenland and the Faroe Islands - that are part of the Community of the Realm. The Greenlandic and Faroese party systems are unrelated to the Danish, but most of he North Atlantic parties have a loose affiliation with a Danish party, all though those connections are increasingly less important. See the Faroe Islands and Greenland  threads on this board for a description of their party systems.

Parties:

Red Bloc is the media short hand for the not particularly red government parties and the two left wing parties they depend on for parliamentary support.

Red Green Alliance (literally the Unity List) formed after the fall of the Berlin Wall as a (successfull) attempt to unite several small left wing fringe parties with very different interpretations of the Marxist tradition into a party with any chance of parliamentary representation. Originally a genuine alliance, but later transformed into an actual party. Torn betwen direct democracy fundamentalists and revolutionary dreamers and a more pragmatic wing to which most of the parliamentary group belongs. With government cuts on welfare, a recently modernized platform weeding out most of the Marxist lingo and revolutionary romanticism and a media savvy spokesperson the party has been able to increase its support. A breakthrough in the municipal elections last year proved they have gotten a broader social basis in parts of the provinces with dissatisfied SD left wingers finding their way to the far left, but the party is still dominated by big city academics. Love making it hard for themselves by nourishing a couple of odd features: no chairman, only a spokesperson, and a rotation rule which puts politicians out of circulation once they get the hang of things. This puts media darling and natural born communicator Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen (30) out of the running if the election is called after the party conference on May 23-25 where they nominate their candidates (which makes it all too tempting for SD to do just that..).

Socialist People's Party was founded in 1958/59 as a Euro-Communist breakaway from the Moscow lapdog Communist Party of Denmark. It later incorporated large segments from the environmentalist, feminist and peace movements from the 70s and 80s as well as the lefty part of the Grundtvigian Folk High School movement (leaving them with the highest share of Lutheran Ministers of any party..). Despite being clobbered in the 2011 election SPP decided to enter government afterwards (for the first time ever), but got steamrolled on all major issues and had to leave after heavy internal infighting leading most of the party's Social Democratic "workerite" right wing to leave. After hovering dangerously close to the threshold the party is now stabilised a couple of percentage points below their (unsatisfactory..) 2011 result by the new leader Pia Olsen Dyhr. Contains both a Democratic Socialist left wing encompassing most of the membership and a Green right wing (with most of the leadership talent - incl. Olsen Dyhr) that would like the party to resemble the German Die Grüne.

Social Democrats was the party of government in most of the 1924-1982 era and the main architects behind the elaborate Danish welfare state. Successfully reformed said welfare state and introduced the flexisecurity model in the 90s under Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, but opposition to rising immigration and integration problems in immigrant ghettos led to the loss of crucial working class voters and defeat in the landslide 2001 election, where the right of center parties gained a majority for the first time since the 1920 and has never regained it's working class support. After being out of office for a decade they regained power under Helle Thorning-Schidt in 2011 and are currently dominated by the party's right wing. Got a strained relationship to the their historical allies in the trade union movement due to failure to secure unemployment benefits (or create enough jobs..) for long term unemployed and avoid wage pressure from cheap Eastern European migrant workers. Minister of Employment Mette Frederiksen leads a centrist wing, while the actual left wing is marginalized, but has some regional strength.

Social Liberals (literally the Radical Left) was traditionally a coalition of poor smallholders and progressive academics and school teachers with anti-militarism as a unifying cause. Played the role of king makers up through the 20th century and acted as sidekick to the Social Democrats in building the welfare state. Today they have lost most of their folksy roots (not many smallholders around these days..) and become a humanistic, feel good party for the creative classes and the cafe latte segment. Seen as arrogant and aloof bezzerwissers by many outside the party and loathed by all types of hicks. There is an internal criticism of lack of solidarity towards the disadvantaged from primarily provincial circles, but the leadership remains fairly right wing after Iron Lady Margrethe Vestager left for Brussels this year. Now led by affable but unknown politologist Morten Østergaard from Denmark's second city Århus. Has de facto moved slightly rightwards on immigration policy - once the party's trademark cause and still very important to most supporters.

[politicus]

Blue Bloc as the media like to call our not all that united centre-right and right wing parties consists of four ideologically diverse parties:


Liberals (literally The Left - Denmark's Liberal Party) is an old agrarian party which conquered the cities in the 90s and after seventy years of intense rivalry finally outmanoeuvred the Conservatives for the spot as Denmarks major centre-right party. Today the party isn't all that liberal anymore supporting a fairly large welfare state targetting the needs of the broad (and employed) middle classes and pursuing tough immigration and law and order policies. Getting slightly more anti-union in recent years, which may signal a more ideological approach. Has it's core areas in Western and Central Jutland where it is a genuine people's party and rooted in rural culture with ties to the right wing of the Grundtvigian movement. The culture gap between this folksy, austere Jutlandic part of the Liberals and the more slick and business oriented suburban/ex-urban Copenhagen area version surfaced briefly with the Løkke Rasmussen expense-scandal, but the Liberals are generally a very united and coherent party. By far the biggest centre-right party with 20%+ support and likely to form a government on it's own next time.


Conservative People's Party founded in 1915/16 when The Right finally acknowledged the need to reach out to broader segments of society than civil servants, army officers, country squires and reactionary Copenhagen petit bourgeoisie. Intended as a mass party (hence the people's part), but apart from a brief moment in the sun in the 80s never able to overtake the Liberals, partly because of a tradition for fierce internal infighting between Social Conservative softies and hardcore right wingers. Today de facto redundant since their selling points have been taken over by others, but still carrying on in the vain hope of one day bouncing back to former glory. Present leader, provincial Mayor Søren Pape Poulsen, has skipped one of of the last differences to the Liberals by going to war against urban/rural zoning and landscape planning, once a conservative trademark cause ("protect our natural heritage"). Seems to be dying a (very) slow death but stable around 4% at the moment.  

Danish People's Party founded in 1995 as a breakaway from the unruly anarcho-libertarian and xenophobic Progress Party (among the most ironically named parties ever) DPP has transformed itself into one of the most successful right wing populist parties in Europe. Expected to decline after party creator and brilliant communicator Pia Kjærgård stepped down as leader, but her replacement academic Kristian Thulesen Dahl has actually moved it's support to an even higher level. Thulesen Dahl can promise the moon and all criticism evaporates into thin air. He has never held a regular job, but manages to be seen as the champion of ordinary hardworking people. After a formidable Euro-election the party is still around 20% in the polls come Christmas time and has even been the biggest party in a couple of them. Thin on the ground but with a top notch communication team around press manager Søren Søndergård and with Teflon Thulesen and a couple of reliable veteran MPs in charge. They have managed to move to the center on socioeconomic issues and actually go left of SD on some issues, but the party has large internal fault lines between genuine right wingers and former SDs, which the party leadership may not be able to bridge for ever. The preferred option for pensioners and invalides the party is seen as a stalwart of public welfare, but helped cut the period for receiving unemployment benefits in half prior to the last election. Euroscepticism is fast becoming as important a trademark as opposition to immigration. Harbours a small and vicious SoCon wing, which the rest of the party ignores so far, but may need to quell if they become too much of a liability. Staunchly pro-Zionist and with ties back to the so called right wing-complex of the Danish resistance movement. Also good friends with KMT in Taiwan and parts of the Tory right wing.

Liberal Alliance is a softcore Libertarian "we hate taxes" party founded (mostly) by people from the Social Liberals right wing as the wishy-washy New Alliance, but today transformed into an ideologically coherent outfit increasingly threatening the Conservatives as the part of young(ish) affluent right wingers (even becoming the favourite part of young monied aristocrats..) and bank rolled by Swiss resident billionaire, Saxo Bank founder and Ayn Rand disciple Lars Seier Christensen. Former professional shot putter Joachim B. Olsen has given them a folksy profile with a string of simplistic attacks on individual cases of "lazy" social clients. The party has left their once soft immigration policy behind in favour of a "only those that can contribute" line, which will make it easier for them to cooperate with the rest of the centre-right.


Others:

Christian Democrats founded in the 70s as a protest against free porn and legal abortion (legalized by a Conservative Minster of Justice..). Forever torn between its core supporters from pietistic Inner Mission in the "Bible Belt" in Western Jutland (even in the heart of this so called Bible Belt only 5-7% are fundis) and liberal Christian greenies in the Big Smoke. Its core constituents sees themselves as solidly centre-right despite having views on welfare, environmental issues, refugees and aid to the Third World much more in line with the left, hence demanding the party always supports a Liberal government and eliminating any chance of real influence - driving more tactically minded types to despair. Copenhagen based chairman Bodil Kornbek and West Jutlandic Tv station manager Tove Videbæk tore the party apart with un-Christian vengeance. Now its led by a Conservative renegade with a DUI verdict and permanently under the threshold (while Videbæk ended up with the Conservatives and Kornbek in the Social Democrats).

Lars Hedegaard/Danish Unity. Chairman of the Free Press Society, former editor in chief of the leftist daily Information and member of the executive committee of the Left Socialists Lars Hedegaard is trying to get elected as an indie (which hasn't happened since comedian Jacob Haugaard did it in 1994 on an anti-politics joke campaign). Hedegaard is one of Denmarks leading Islamophobes and the victim of a much discussed murder attempt (the Turks captured the terrorist and then exchanged him to al-Nusrah in a shady deal..). Despite claiming he is still a leftist Hedegaard is running with the backing of far right Danish Unity. A party started in the 30s by corporatist anti-parliamentarian writer Arne Sørensen and the leading force on the right wing of the Danish resistance movement giving them a brief moment of glory after the war. Disappeared into obscurity in the early 50s, picked up Europhobia in the 70s and was then hijacked and reinvigorated in the 00s by Danish Forum a group of ultranationalist students kicked out of DPP for extremism. Now led by historian and immigration chronicler Morten Uhrskov Jensen. DPP has moderated somewhat on integration and accepted the multicultural society as a fait accompli (but still preferring ethnic minorities to integrate/assimilate to the level of the Danish Jews = keeping religion strictly private and using Danish names etc.). This "going soft" opens the gate for a challenge from more principled ethnonationalists and Danish Unity is untainted by the Nazi stigma many of the other far right groups have. Well known Hedegaard is their test case, if he gets in they will try to run as a party next time.

The Alternative is a new network based party started by former Social Liberal Minister of Culture and ex-leader of the Chaos Pilots project leader education Uffe Elbæk. The party wants to establish an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable society by creating a steady state economy and promote social inclusion and participatory democracy. So an idealistic (possibly naive) attempt to seek alternative ways to construct society. They seem to lack a target audience (one pundit described their constituency as "the far left of the Social Liberals, basically people who agree with the Red Greens, but can't imagine voting for Socialists" - a very small group, but Denmark doesn't have a Green party and the current government has neglected environmental policy, so with the SPP ridiculed and sidelined by the media there may be an opening for an Alternative.

[politicus]

How early in advance does a PM usually call the election? A few weeks in advance or a few months?

HTS should call the election on March 22nd, and we could have an epic Sweden vs. Denmark election battle.  

3-5 weeks, normally five. We have no tradition for very long campaigns. But unless the poll numbers suddenly change a lot March is out of the question. They have been very stable around 55-45 for a long time now. Also, there is the temptation to "wait out" Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen and the need for Morten Østergaard to become better known - 25% of adult Danes don't know who he is and that is high for a leader of a central party in Denmark.

What happened to the alternative social democratic party the labor unions were going to found?

Never amounted to more than a local list in Northern Jutland, a stronghold of the party's left wing.

[politicus]

Denmark is home to 5.7 mio. people about 8% of them from ethnic minorities (concentrated mainly in the larger towns and voting on the left despite having conservative values). More than 80% are still members of the (quite liberal) government run Evangelical Lutheran church, but Denmark is de facto a post-Christian society (all though less so in Jutland according to surveys).



Jutland is roughly the same size as Belgium and got half the population, two thirds of the land and three quarter of the industry (and for obvious reasons most of the agriculture). In the eyes of Jutlanders they create the wealth of Denmark and we Copenhageners consume it (and they would be right )
The towns along the central part of the Jutlandic east coast (Kolding-Randers) are increasingly one urban area with more than a million inhabitans called the East Jutlandic Urban Belt by geographers and constituting an alternative center challenging the hegemony of Copenhagen.

The Greater Copenhagen area has about a third of the population (incl. most of the ethnic minorities) and a service based economy. The city being progressively deindustrialized since the mid 50s all though there are still some industrial clusters in the western suburbs. Copenhagen was a run down city in the 80s, but massive urban renewal and economic integration with Scania after the completion of Øresundsbron has given the city a significant lift. Copenhagen proper is "fox red" as we say in Danish (with the borough of Frederiksberg being a blue island), the working class/lower middle class suburbs west of the city centre are traditional SD strongholds, but increasingly DPP and the affluent areas to the north are solidly centre-right. They used to be Conservative strongholds, but both the Liberals and Liberal Alliance have been making big inroads up there.
The second and third largest towns on Zealand (Elsinore and Roskilde) are de facto parts of Greater Copenhagen and there are no important economic centers on Zealand outside of the Capital Region (sorry Næstved..).

There are four towns with 50.000+ located outside of these two regions:

Ålborg with a population of 150.000 is the capital of Northern Jutland and a working class city (boxing matches on Boxing Day..) with significant industry (incl. some high tech) and a bastion of the SD left.

Odense is the center of Funen and mostly a service town. It is one of the few places outside the Capital Region with some conservative strength. Has one of the worst ghetto areas in the country (Vollsmose, vold being Danish for violence, mose = bog, obvious puns are obvious).

Esbjerg is a wind swept harbour town in Westen Jutland with 80.000 inhabitants - home to offshore activities and a smelly fishing industry. Dominated by the Liberals, but also a bastion of the SD right wing. Left wing hate object and Minister of Finance Bjarne Corydon (lots of English surnames over there) is from Esbjerg, as was former PM Poul Nyrup Rasmussen.

Herning on the moors in Central Jutland is an ugly go-getter town filled with entrepreneurs with big plans and a can do attitude (Eastern Danes would say megalomania..), but they often succeed with far out plans - Giro d'Italia started in Herning in 2012. Not surprisingly a Liberal stronghold.

Outside of these areas (well, partly touching Esbjerg) you got the so called "Rotten Banana". The areas stretching  through Western and Southern Jutland bending down across beautiful Southern Funen and the islands south of Funen to Lolland and Falster south of Zealand. These are the loser areas with low growth, high unemployment and an aging population. Bornholm in the Baltic also belong in this category. People in the "Rotten Banana" unsurprisingly vote DPP in disproportionate numbers, but they also encompass some of the reddest areas in Denmark, deindustrialized Western Lolland being the best left wing area outside of Copenhagen and Århus.  

The "Rotten Banana" - here shown as areas with highest unemployment for unskilled workers.
 

[politicus]

Despite being a socially liberal, pro-globalization society with a very open economy and a more widely travelled population than almost any other country in the world Denmark has a very uneasy relationship with multiculturalism and immigration giving rise to one of the most successful anti-immigration parties in Europe and a very restrictive immigration policy.

To look at the causes you need to go back to how the country turned into a nation state - and how the people in that nation state constructed their identity.
Modern Denmark is a rump state - lost wars, adverse great power interests and incompetent diplomacy reduced a sprawling 18th century multiethnic conglomerate state to a small ethnically homogeneous entity by 1864. Danish nation building took place in a context where everyone was a Danish speaking Lutheran and most worked in agriculture. The minister, poet, historian, educator, soothsayer and "prophet" N.F.S. Grundtvig mixed his own brand of egalitarian Christian national romanticism, which laid the foundation for runaway school teacher Christen Kold's Folk High Schools and Free Schools educating the peasants in history, Christianity, Nordic myths and literature in an examination free and non-government controlled setting with tuition based on storytelling. Grundtvigianism provided a vital ideological supplement to economic liberalism for the victorious peasant movement, that took over government in 1901 after 30 years of intense struggle with conservatives.

The Danish world "folk" meaning at once demos and ethnos was at the heart of Grundtvig's  ideology and he was extremely influential. Anything cultural in Denmark became related to the folk. We have a folk school, a folk church, folk libraries and of course a Folketing filled with folk parties to rule it all.

When the labour movement replaced the peasant moment and the Liberals as the dominant political force from the 20s onwards they gradually reinterpreted their socialist tradition to fit the "folk" mould and created their own Workers High Schools and enlightenment associations to educate their part of the folk and set up a well funded Ministry of Culture to spread national culture to the working people.

In the mid 60s a rapid second wave of industrialization hit this ethnically homogeneous Denmark. To  keep up production the gates were opened for labour immigration for a short while between 1967-73 with young single male Turks, Serbs, Pakistanis and Moroccans coming to do the dirty and heavy work. This was abruptly stopped when the first Oil Crisis hit Denmark in 1973, but the immigrants stayed on and at the end of the decade the SD government allowed them to bring their families to Denmark. In 1983 a commission led by the Ombudsman recommended liberalization of the refugee laws allowing nonpolitical refugees to enter, this was reluctantly implemented by the centre-right government and triggered a wave of primarily Iranian refugees. All this led to Denmark becoming a more ethnically diverse society despite officially having a full immigration stop.

As late as the 90s prominent SDs shrugged of the idea that Denmark was turning into a multiethnic society, but ordinary people in the cities experienced this quite differently as chain immigration by family reunification accelerated and neighbourhoods changed. Since ethnic homogeneity was the foundation for national identity and by many seen as necessary to secure the solidarity needed to uphold a high tax welfare state this provoked a backlash. First by the Danish Association, the nationalist Lutheran Tidehverv movement and the populist Progress Party. Those forces where too weak to do much, but in 1995 Progress Party leader Pia Kjærsgård, a brilliant communicator and "everywoman", dumped the anarcho-libertarians and village idiots in her party and launched the Danish People's Party to fight mass immigration and restore "Danish values". SD Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen dismissed them as a party that would never be "house broken". But she successfully claimed the Social Democratic heritage from the postwar working class national SD leaders Hedtoft and H.C. Hansen and branded her party as a socially caring centrist party that would take Denmark back to "the good old days" of the homogeneous postwar welfare state.

After the landslide 2001 election, that secured a majority to the right of the Social Liberals for the first time in 80 years the leader of the Liberals Anders Fogh Rasmussen chose to base his government on DPP implementing the toughest immigration legislation in Europe. AFR was a product of conservative rural Jutland and besides being a political opportunist, national values were close to his heart. Droves of working class voters had deserted SD in favour of DPP (and the Liberals) and after losing the 2005 election as well SD felt forced to adapt their immigration policies to be (nearly) as tough as the Liberals in order to compete. The working class voters did not return, but SD still fear losing even more support and when the current  centre-left government was formed in 2011 they demanded that the Social Liberals and SPP agreed to keep up the tough immigration and integration legislation of the previous government, although abolishing extremely low unemployment benefits for immigrants. With constant attacks from the right for going soft every time SD tries to redefine immigration policy to promote inclusion "foreigner policy" as it is revealingly called is locked away as a status quo area where a new "firm but fair" policy has become the unassailable law of the land. This consensus as well as the pressure for trying to appear respectable has also pressured DPP to accept the de facto existence of a multiethnic society exposing the party to a possible long term attack from the (even more) far right.

The opposition to multiculturalism is not restricted to social conservatives. Equality and cohesion are strong values in Denmark and most people would ideally like to see immigrants assimilate to the level of (almost all) Danish Jews with widespread intermarriage, symbolic integration - such as Danish first names, adherence to the majority's views on gender roles, child rearing and homosexually + religion kept strictly private. This collides head on with the culture of large parts of the Muslim community, giving rise to what I often call liberal Islamophobia - the view of Islam as a source for renewed macho culture, sexism, prudism, homophobia, violence as a tool in upbringing and other reactionary elements progressives thought they had defeated. In short Denmark is a country where social liberals thought they had long ago won the culture war for good and are now reacting with frustration against having to fight many of the old battles once more. This is enforced by a (mostly subconscious) "its my country, not theirs" sentiment leading to an ambivalent feeling about multiculturalism and immigration from many people with progressive values.

[politicus]

Latest poll from Voxmeter, December 14:


Social Democrats 21,3%

Social Liberals 7,5%

Conservatives 4,4%

SPP 7,2%

Liberal Alliance 5,7%

Christian Democrats 0,8%

DPP 19,4%

Liberals 24,2%

Red Green Alliance 9,5%

[politicus]

Thought I might as well repost this one here.

Which area do you think is the most important one, the one politicians should focus on?

Unemployment
Immigration
Economy
Health
Environment/Climate
Education
Taxation
None of the above/don't know

[politicus]

Will the election be held concurrently with the various EU referendums Denmark were planning a while back?

Also, I didn't know the DPP were part of the "Blue block". I thought they were treated like the Swedish Democrats - a sort of "third pole". It begs the question: what happens if they outpoll Venstre, like they did earlier this year: could Dahl be PM?

No, the referendum will run separately. It would definitely not be in the government's interest to mix those things, that could only help the euro-sceptic parties.

DPP is a necessary element of the Blue bloc. The VKO-majority (V=Liberals, K=Conservatives and O=DPP) was the basis for the Liberal-Conservative government 2001-2011.

DPP is Eurosceptic which rules them out as part of a Liberal led coalition. Thulesen-Dahl can only become Premier in the unthinkable scenario that DPP is bigger than the other three "Blue" parties together, even then it likely wouldn't happen.

[politicus]

Just to clarify: The idea that Danish politics can be boiled down to a Blue bloc and a Red bloc fighting against each other is a media simplification solely based on preferred Prime Minister and especially the Red-Greens relationship to the government is far from cordial. There has been some informal coordination meetings between the four Blue bloc parties, but it is nothing like the Swedish Alliance.

[politicus]

Ok, but it still suggests that the environment doesn't matter much to them, and that a policy to increase jobs at the expense of the environment would be approved overall. However, as I noted, this is a small sample of voters.

The Danish left wing loves the idea of "green jobs" ie. job creation in environmental technology and sale of Danish expertise/know how in the field, so most of them would not see job creation and environmentalism as opposites (they also love the idea of selling "welfare technology" for the same reasons).

[politicus]

Three Questions:

(1) Insofar as you can actually tell, does their Zionism come from a sort of philo-Semitism, in the way, say, that many Christians (especially evangelicals) are Zionist, or is it more of a "Muslims don't like Jews and hate Israel so we should be pro-Israel because we don't like Muslims" sort of thing?

(2) What is this "right wing-complex of the Danish resistance movement" you speak of?

(3) I'm just curious: do you mean that they're fundamentalists just in the colloquial sense--i.e. very conservative Christians--or in the technical sense that you often see in the US and Canada. By that I mean, actual self-identifying fundamentalist Christians, generally Dispensationalist, believing in biblical inerrancy, etc.

1) It's both, but mostly the first. The link back to the resistance movement play a part. Denmark was never particularly anti-semitic and the Jews were accepted as fellow Danes in the interwar era. We Danes are proud of saving our Jews in 1943 - seen as a redeeming act of heroism after the cowardly collaboration. Like all hero tales this story has some less idealistic and less heroic elements, but it was still an accomplishment and despising antisemitism became part of being a good, patriotic Dane. It was part of the national consensus in the 50s and 60s that you were pro-Israel and antisemitism was associated with Nazi-sympathy and collaboration. It was a shock to many conservative Danes when the left wing started being pro-Palestinian in the 70s because they associated critique of the Jewish state with antisemitism.
Some historians say the anti-authoritarian youth rebellion from 1968 onwards influenced Danish society more than any other Westen country and DPP basically thinks Denmark went morally wrong after 1968. Being anti-Zionist, which for them equals being antisemitic, is part of that moral decline.

2) The four all dominant Danish parties (SD, Social Liberals, Liberals and Conservatives) chose to collaborate with the occupying Germans in 1940 in order to secure control over the state, uphold the rule of law and prevent actual German military rule with the horrors that would entail, This situation lasted 1940-43 and most Danes accepted this as a sensible way of dealing with an impossible situation. Two groups mobilized against this the Communists, who later incorporated mainly Social Democrats in their groups (the most famous Danish saboteur group was called BOPA - bourgeois partisans, after SDs  joined the original KOPA = communist partisans ) and Danish Unity + national conservatives from the right wing of the Conservative Peoples party. So the early Danish resistance movement was dominated by the fringes and even though plenty of ordinary centrist Danes joined from late 1943 onwards right to the end you can see a division between a right wing complex and a left wing complex. Complex is used by historians to convey the loose network character of this - they were not actual factions, but the different origin of different resistance groups influenced who they worked with. The military intelligence after WW2 and the Danish version of Gladio was based on the right wing complex. In the 80s some of the veterans created the Danish Association to fight mass immigration (and the EEC). This (inefficient) group + others with a background in "resistance families" and their ideological legacy continue in DPP.

3) Inner Mission and the even more conservative Lutheran Mission believe in Biblical inerrancy (incl. what Americans would call the Five Fundamentals), but the terminology is different here and they are unrelated to Niagara Bible Conference and the US fundamentalist tradition. It dates back to German inspired pietism from the 18th Century surviving among laymen and being reinvigorated as a mass movement in the 1860s and 70s.

[politicus]

A couple of random elaborations

- DPP Deputy Chairman Søren Espersen, who has a Jewish wife and is a leading pro-Israel advocate,  started out in the Left Socialists (a radical breakaway from the SPP that was fashionable among Danish students and progressive youth in the 70s), but quickly left them because he couldn't stand their views on Israel, which he associated with antisemitism. A number of other anti-immigration advocates from that generation originated in the Left Socialists (I mentioned Lars Hedegaard, former TV star and SD Social Minister Karen Jespersen would be another). Like many (Jewish) US neo-cons a lot of Danish Islam-critics/Anti-Islamists/Islamophobes (take your pick) originated on the left, but had pro-Israeli symphaties which led them to move rightwards (of course it's a lot more complicated than that both with US neo-cons and Danish anti-Islamists, but the parallel is interesting).

- DPP interprets Islamism as a modern form of Nazism. A totalitarian, antidemocratic ideology threatening Danish values and freedom, so being against Islamism and pro-Israel is for them a natural continuation of the resistance struggle.

- Antisemitism carries a particularly strong stigma in Denmark and when someone writes acerbic or harsh statements about Muslims "try to replace Muslim with Jew" is often used as a powerful argument against the author. Anti-racist activists often try to associate Islamophobia and antisemitism, simply because the stigma attached to antisemitism is so strong among ordinary Danes.

[politicus]

Oh, come on Politicus - while the polls where much better, the 2011 election result for SF was the second best since 1987, 25 years!
And your idea that the majority of the membership of SF is in some kind of conflict with the leadership is complete nonsense... Don't believe everything that Berlingske and Jyllandsposten writes. If you want to read articles by someone who actually has good sources in SF, unlike fx. Thomas Larsen from Berlingske, who is polling analysis out of his arse, you should read Elisabeth Svane fra Fyns Stiftstidende.

SPP was polling at 13% at the start of the 2011 campaign, so landing at 9.2% must be interpreted as a remarkable collapse during such a short campaign (only three weeks). It may seem allright in hindsight (given where the party is now), but was surely a clear defeat at the time. It was IMO a mistake of Søvndal to enter government after such a big loss.

I didn't want to convey the image that there is a "war" going on in SPP, just that the party contains people with different views about what the party should be. The Red/Green division is pretty basic in SPP. I never read Berlingske (only their poll Barometer) or JP.

[politicus]

The eight party leaders, or political spokesperson for the Red-Green Alliance.



From left to right:
The two guys in the back are the Social Liberal leader, Deputy PM and Minister of the Economy and Interior Morten Østergaard and DPP leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl.
In the middle we have SPP leader Pia Olsen Dyhr; Liberal leader, former PM and currently leader of the opposition Lars Løkke Rasmussen; Liberal Alliance leader Anders Samuelsen, the Red-Green Alliance political spokesperson Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, and Conservative leader Søren Pape Poulsen.
In the chair, of course, Social Democrat leader and PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

Yeah, Danish politics is quite gender stereotypical at the moment with female leaders of the three "red" parties and male leaders of all five bourgeois parties. A bit weird actually after so long with Pia Kjærgaard as DPP boss (and Lene Espersen as Conservaive leader for some years), Marianne Jelved/Margrethe Vestager for Social Liberals for ages and Holger K./Søvndal for SPP.

The only Danish parties that have never had a female leader are the Liberals and the newcomers in Liberal Alliance.

Also a bit anonymous types; only Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen has personal charisma (though on a board where Göran Persson qualifies as charismatic I suppose  Helle T. and Thulesen could qualify as well )

[politicus]

Liberal leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen has in an interview demanded that the other Blue Bloc parties agree to five guiding points for a Liberal led government, while they sound uncontoversial at least DPP will have problems with a couple of them:

1. It should always pay to get a job (read lower unemployment benefits - at least for unskilled workers, which is not DPP policy)

2. More private jobs (partially a code for the Liberal idea of zero growth in public expenditures, which is not DPP policy)

3. Denmark should be more open to foreigners that "can and will - but closed to those that wont".
(first part obviously not DPP policy, omits "can not" as in traumatized/sick/elderly refugees).

4. Danes should be safe in their homes and on the streets.

5. The Health service needs to be "even better than today" (more tax financed expenditures = not Liberal Alliance policy)

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Why do you consider the Alternative a more likely possibility than Lars Hedegaard for Others? Even if it is "Other parties" they have clearly added Indie votes to that column (and his votes will come from the right).

DPP seems to have fallen behind the two big ones - it is beginning to look like a trend (but still uncertain).

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Why do you consider the Alternative a more likely possibility than Lars Hedegaard for Others? Even if it is "Other parties" they have clearly added Indie votes to that column (and his votes will come from the right).

DPP seems to have fallen behind the two big ones - it is beginning to look like a trend (but still uncertain).

I mainly just followed the newspaper itself which looked in that direction:

http://borsen.dk/nyheder/politik/artikel/1/297246/maaling_er_uffe_elbaek_ved_at_lave_en_sniger.html

Agree that it could be others than the Alternative. Just looked at Facebook, and can see that the National Party (20 639) actually has more likes than the Alternative (16 247). Danish Unity only has 366 likes, but it seems that it is not their main platform. However, the Alternative has the advantage of a way more well-known leader which is still an MP while the National Party only has a local councillor; I guess that is why the newspaper assumes that it is mainly the Alternative which is getting the votes. Elbæk also has 12 182 likes on FB, while the National Party leader Kashif Ahmad only has 3 470.

Hedegaard will take votes from the right yes, but only in one multimember constituency while the Alternative and the National Party, if they get enough signatures to run, will take votes in the whole country, although probably mainly in urban areas. I think the two left-wing alternatives will have a easier time at this election due to dissatisfaction with parties like the Social Liberals and SF, whereas DF will be more vulnerable if/when they return to a position of power (and thereby responsibility).

I think that there is a segment of about 1-1,5% of voters who voted DPP last time but think the party has "gone soft" and that Hedegaard can tap into that group, but I admit I don't have much actual evidence to base that on. It is worth remembering that Hedegaard is far more well known than his backers in Danish Unity, so their almost non-existing support is not that relevant.
Elbæk's attempt at creating a Green party seems very amateurish and fluffy (I believe the only ones that could successfully build a green party in Denmark would be SPP right wingers who got tired of their True Leftists and decided to jump ship and start over with a new party, but Ida Auken - unfortunately - chose the Social Liberals). I consider the National Party a gimmick and a non-entity. I don't believe they have any real support.

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yeah, the Danish Unity is not very important this time around as the campaign will mainly be around Lars Hedegaard who has quite a national profile. To gauge whether he can get anywhere near a seat, you would probably have to follow the media activity in the Sjælland multimember constituency where he is running. If he wants to be elected, he should probably already be quite active in local media and so on to make his candidature and themes well-known in the region. There are 20 seats in the constituency, so he will probably need 4-4.5 % of the votes to get one of them, which will a bit above 20 000 votes. The constituency is usually the DPP's strongest area; they got 16.1% in 2011 where they received 12.3% in the whole country. It is where former party leader Pia Kjærsgaard runs, and includes some of the (rural) areas where the party has the most strength like Guldborgsund where they almost provided the mayor after the last local election. So there is quite some DPP voters to harvest, but again the question is whether enough of them feel the need to change their vote after a term in opposition. Could be interesting with a constituency poll at some point to see whether Hedegaard has any traction, but I can't really remember ever seeing one in relation to national elections.  

It is a small detail, but a place like Guldborgsund may be a marginal area, but it isn't really rural. There are 61.000 inhabitants and almost half of them lives in the largest town Nykøbing Falster and it's suburbs and ex-urbs. You have got another 10.500 in four small towns: Sakskøbing (4500), Nørre Alslev (2400), Stubbekøbing (2200) and Nysted (1300), all former boroughs except Nørre Alslev + 700 in the old ferry port Gedser. It also has some former station towns where Eskilstrup got 1100 inhabitants (but those would be more village like identity wise). It is one of those run down old SD strongholds where unemployment is too high an the young people are leaving, but it isn't more rural than the average provincial area. 2/3 urban-1/3 rural is pretty standard for provincial Denmark.
DPP seems to do better in small towns than in actual rural areas (I know as Copenhageners we can have a tendency to consider towns with 1000-5.000 people for rural, but if it is an old borough like Nysted (very much a castle town) the feeling and local identity is quite different.

Nysted - "the southernmost borough of Denmark":

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The constituencies were changed in 2007; before that Copenhagen area were divided into three smaller constituencies. I would think that this would be the first time for 100+ years that the Social Democrats would not become the most popular party in Copenhagen.
The nation-wide prognosis is unfortunately behind a pay-wall

IIRC SD passed Højre ("the Right") in Copenhagen in 1898.

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Wilke for Jyllands-Posten made a poll regarding a thing which we have discussed in this thread as well; the potential for a party to the right of DPP.

12.8% miss a party with a stricter immigration policy than DPP; 4.9% in the red bloc and 19.5% in the blue bloc.
12.9% would consider voting for a national conservative party with a immigrationstop as its main topic; 2.8% in the red bloc and 21.1% in the blue bloc.

Polls like that haven't really been made before, so it's difficult to know whether/how much this group has grown. But, as expected, it shows that there is a potential for the party to the right of the DPP. The question is still whether it can emerge while the DPP is in opposition.

Interesting, but those are very high numbers. I doubt anywhere near as many would actually vote for one. It is like when you ask Americans whether they would like a moderate third party in between the Dems and Pubs. You get high numbers that like the idea in principle, but would likely never act on it.

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Yes, but a DPP in government long enough could give way for something to emerge on its right, pretty much like AfD is doing for CDU/CSU right now.

Clearly and it could IMO also develop while they are in opposition, but would be very marginal. I see a 2-4% fringe party (dependent on how radical it became).

DPP is unlikely to enter government because 1) they don't want to lose their free rider status (and have seen what government did to SPP) 2) they could never agree with the Liberas on a common EU policy. Basically DPP will only get into government if they are significantly stronger than the three other blue bloc parties combined and can dictate EU (and immigration) policy to the others and this is completely unrealistic at the moment. You need a whole new balance of power with something like DPP 30%, Liberals 18%, Conservatives 3%, Liberal Alliance 4%.

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Yes, but a DPP in government long enough could give way for something to emerge on its right, pretty much like AfD is doing for CDU/CSU right now.

Clearly and it could IMO also develop while they are in opposition, but would be very marginal. I see a 2-4% fringe party (dependent on how radical it became).

DPP is unlikely to enter government because 1) they don't want to lose their free rider status (and have seen what government did to SPP) 2) they could never agree with the Liberas on a common EU policy. Basically DPP will only get into government if they are significantly stronger than the three other blue bloc parties combined and can dictate EU (and immigration) policy to the others and this is completely unrealistic at the moment. You need a whole new balance of power with something like DPP 30%, Liberals 18%, Conservatives 3%, Liberal Alliance 4%.

How big can DPP grow before it's just silly to stay as simple government support though? I'm sure they like governing from the Folketing benches (we all know government is hazardous for your health) where they can pretend to be the opposition while de facto being in power. But at some point if the DPP continues growing that will become ridiculous. Can there really be a minority government that is smaller in support than the parties in parliament that it relies on? 

Yes, Poul Hartling led a Liberal government based on 22 seats back in the 70s.

Our next government will almost certainly be a Liberal government with less seats than DPP + Conservatives + Liberal Alliance.

Europe is a major cleavage in Danish politics and a government involving a euro-sceptic party is just a very difficult construction. And it is an issue where DPP will not compromise. If they do not have the strength to force the Liberals to adjust their EU-policy they will stay out. Being pro-European is very important for the Liberals, so it is not an issue they will compromise on unless they are in a hopeless position. So you need something like my scenario.

Even then if the Liberals really were to get that low the (a bit more genuinely liberal) wing under Kristian Jensen might get the chairmanship (LLR would not survive going that low). It is well known Kristian Jensen doesn't like DPP and that could change things quite a bit.

So you never know, but it is actually difficult to construct a realistic scenario in which DPP gets into government. But much will depend on whether DPP keeps going left on welfare & economics and moderate a bit on integration (as they have been doing). If that happens we might see an SD-DPP coalition in 15 years, when a new generation is in charge.

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http://politik.tv2.dk/2015-01-30-grafik-hvor-kommer-dfs-mange-nye-vaelgere-egentlig-fra#RV

At the bottom of this page is a helpful tool to see how voters have moved since the 2011 election.

The remaining 4% from non-voters?

DPP getting more voters from the Liberals than SD begs the question how many voters the Liberals are getting directly from SD. At the moment there seem to be more voters going directly from SD to Venstre than SD to DPP.

Otherwise it is hardly surprising that SD and Venstre are the main contributors. For most ordinary non-academic/teacher, non-affluent Danes there are generally only three relevant parties: SD, Venstre and DPP. Especially outside Greater Copenhagen. Even social clients tend to vote SD, DPP and Venstre and not left wing (as some right wing pundits want us to believe).
So DPP would naturally get its voters from Venstre and SD.

You then get:

a) public sector academics, students and teachers parties: Red-Greens, SPP, Social Liberals.

b) wealthy people and/or private sector academics (and students hoping to become such creatures): Liberal Alliance, Conservatives.

With the Social Liberals having a slice of b) as well.

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A poll from Wilke (conducted February 4-8) has SD above the 2011 election result - first one to show that in ages. It might be an outlier, but a Voxmeter poll also has SD above 23%.

Wilke/Voxmeter:

SD 25,6/23,6
Social Liberals 6,7/7,8
Conservatives 4,7/4,8
SPP 6,7/6,5
Liberal Alliance 5,6/5,5
Christian Democrats 1,3/0,4
DPP 19,0/19,7
Liberals 23,0/22,6
Red Greens 7,4/8,7

Red bloc 46,4/46,6

Blue bloc 53,6/53,0

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Whither the Red-Greens? Is Denmark like rich European countries used to be, when the extremists would surge mid-term but collapse before the next election?

It's a natural result of SPP moving to the left and recreating their old base. The teachers who had almost left SPP enmass for the Red-Greens have also begun to return as their anger have begun to cool.

Yeah it's just a smooth realignment from SF's crisis last year. Plus I wouldn't precisely call SF "extremists"...

It is also a return to a combined total of roughly 15% for the left wing - which is the post cold war standard situation. There was a point where dissatisfied SD left wingers where going to the Red-Greens and the left wing was polling around 20%, but that effect seems to be completely neutralized now.

SPP gaining back voters is a nice accomplishment by especially party chairman Pia Olsen Dyhr, but not unexpected.

All in all it looks like the Red-Greens have lost their chance to become a big party - this time. It will still be crucial if they manage to stay ahead of SPP. If they do I think they will squeeze out SPP in the long run. SPP is the second most redundant party in Danish politics (no prize for guessing who is no. 1) and if the Red-Greens would kick out their Trots/Antifa-sympathizers, drop the rotation rule for MPs, create an actual youth organization (instead of relying on an activist style non-affiliated Socialist Youth Front), run their own list in the Euros (a chance to scoop up left wing Eurosceptics) and elect an actual chairman they could probably kill off SPP in a decade. Of course that is not going to happen, but even a couple of these changes would go a long way.

SPP has lost many of its young voters and members and rely too heavily on he "young in the 70s" brigade.

Red-Greens have gotten a lot of new members in places where they were previously absent (working class small town Jutlanders joining the Red-Greens would be almost unheard of five years ago) and lots of new municipal councillors. So their foundation is signifantly stronger and they are a genuinely national party now. But this also creates a cleavage between ideological, principled (or "semi-utopian") big city academics and practical working class people (or marginalized) with unions as their main organizational frame of reference. It is not a big problem now, but it might be further down the road.