DENMARK - 5 June 2019 election

[Diouf]

3rd part of Altinget's list of 100 events of this term

51. The Danish National Team wins silver at the Women's European Championship in Football. The team gets a lot of attention, and plays a role in several political areas. In the following World Cup qual, the team loses a match by default (a significant reason why they missed out on the WC) as the player's union and the association can't agree on improved conditions for the women's team, captain Pernille Harder becomes one of the main face in promoting LGBT acceptance and striker Nadia Nadim, a refugee from Afghanistan, becomes a voice in the integration debate.
52. Minister for Food and Agriculture Esben Lunde Larsen is forced to give up responsibility for the Fisheries department as DPP joins the Red Bloc in losing trust in his handling of that area, where he is seen to be helping big fishers against the spirit of the quota system. Minister for Equality and Nordic cooperation, Karen Ellemann takes over responsibility of the department.
53. Greta Thurnberg starts school strikes for the climate, which quickly spreads to Denmark and around the World.
54. Social Liberal Mayor of Employment and Integration in Copenhagen, Anna Mee Allerslev, resigns shortly before the local elections after accusations of corruption and exploiting the city hall staff to arrange her own wedding.
55. DONG energy, where the Danish state own a majority share, changes its name to Ørsted, after the Danish scientist. The move comes after the company has stopped its production of oil and natural gas, and exclusively focuses on renewables. The sale of some of the state's shares in the company to Goldman Sachs caused the government crisis in 2014, which ended with SPP leaving the government.
56. The Social Democrats becomes the big winner in the local and regional elections. The party wins 32.5% of the vote, and has the chairmen/mayor in 4 of 5 regions, and 47 of 98 municipalities. The election was expected to give a breakthrough to DPP on the local level after their strong European and General election results. Instead the party loses votes, ends on 4th place with only 8.75%. None of its major names becomes mayor, but in the end it does gain its first mayor in the tiniest municipality, the Læsø island where a majority is assembled without the big Liberal party. In the second-smallest municipality, Fanø, the Alternative gets its first mayor.
57. After weeks of drama where Liberal Alliance publicly contemplated to vote against the Government's budget, a deal is made with DPP for the 2018 budget. It includes more money for health care and elderly care as well as lower car taxes and bridge tolls.
58. The accusations of too close relations between Liberals and big fishers intensify, when it is revealed that PM Løkke Rasmussen spent a week for free in one of the fishermen's summer cottages. According to Løkke, a birthday gift, which haven't influenced policies in any way.
59. Another round of moving state jobs from Copenhagen to the rest of the country is started. This time, an additional 4 500 jobs are moved.
60. Citizen proposals are introduced, so that if a proposal gets 50 000 signatures, parliament has to discuss it. None of them has been approved yet.
61. Government, Social Democrats, DPP and Social Liberals agree a defence deal, which increases the budget for the first time since the Cold War. The deal raises the defence share of GDP to 1.3% in 2023, which costs around 13 billion DKK (1.75 billion Euro).
62. The government and DPP agrees a minor tax deal, which will lower income taxes, primarily for low earners. It will cost 5 billion DKK a year.
63. The Queen's husband, Prince Consort Henrik dies.
64. Denmark, along with other European countries, expels Russian diplomats after the Novichok attacks in Salisbury.
65. The government and DPP agrees a deal to cut the state broadcaster DR's budget with 20% in five years.
66. DPP profile Morten Messerschmidt returns after a long sick leave, and announces that he is running in the next general election.
67. Two of the main trade unions agree to merge. The new organization now represents 1.4 million members in 80 different sections.
68. A major public sector labour conflict is avoided at the last minute as the state, regions and municipalities agrees a deal with the trade unions.
69. Minister of Higher Education and Research, Søren Pind, announces his resignation after several years as an influential voice in the Liberals. First as a Liberal rebel, who was tired of the party's centrist welfare position in the early 00s, and later in several different Minister positions.
70. The PM carries out a reshuffle. Pind leaves the government along with Minister of Food and Agriculture, Esben Lunde Larsen who also resigned. Karen Ellemann becomes Liberal group leader instead of Minister. Instead Eva Kjer Hansen returns as minister, while two young urban voices (Jacob Ellemann-Jensen and Tommy Ahlers) are new ministers.
71. The government, Social Democrats and DPP agrees on a ban to cover up your face in public without a valid reason (Burqa Ban). One Social Democrat and many Liberal Alliance MPs rebel and vote against the proposal.
72. Government, DPP and Social Democrats agree to build fences alongside part of the Danish-German border to keep out wild boars who can bring diseases.
73. Mette Frederiksen announces that if the Red Bloc wins the next election, she will form a Social Democrat-only government. The distance to the Social Liberals have become too big, and she believes that a single party government would be able to navigate better in a fragmented parliament, where different majorities can come into play in different questions.
74. The PM praises Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un for the diplomatic breakthrough reaced in their historic meeting.
75. The World Cup in football is played in Russia. There are some discussions around whether Denmark should send political representatives, but the government decides to do so. Minister of Culture Mette Bock is not able to go, so instead Minister of Equality, Nordic Cooperation and Fisheries, Eva Kjer Hansen represents the government.

https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/181773-husker-du-her-er-de-100-vigtigste-begivenheder-fra-valgperioden

[Diouf]

Stram Kurs (Tough Line) has now gathered enough signatures to be on the ballot. The Ministry still needs to give its official approval of the signatures, the party will apply for a party letter and so on, but it should be quite safe to say that they will be on the ballot. To DR, Rasmus Paludan says that he will probably run in Southern Jutland (because people there know too well how it is to live under foreign rule), but could end up opting for Zealand because he lives there. These two are also the biggest constituencies (and with many DPP voters), so it's probably where he would have the best chance of winning a constituency seat.
He says their first choice as PM is himself. Second choice would be the person, who to the biggest degree wants to fulfil the party's goal of banning islam and initiating mass-scale deportations.
He states he won't make Quran stunts to the election debates, since he is a guest who behaves politely. But the party itself will still arrange Quran shows to illustrate the problem of a lack of free speech regarding Islam, and the violent attacks from many immigrants.

Videoes from the party's main communication channel, Youtube, can be seen here. This is mainly from Paludan's Quran shows and demonstrations: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4x-CILeIrI5vVk3T11KaVQ/videos

[Diouf]

Would getting in the ballot be significant in any way?

I would expect a full blown neo-nazi party to get what, 0,01% of the vote?

Since the barriers for getting on the ballot are quite high, all parties who get on the ballot are treated alike in that their party leader is in the tv debates, and the party gets a programme on the main channels where they can show a party broadcast and where they are questioned on policies. Therefore it is quite significant.

The barrier is collection of +20 000 signatures with double approval. This process was made somewhat easier a few years ago, when it became possible to gather them online via digitalID. However, in the last half year, it has shown to be possible to cheat the IT system which is supposed to ensure double approval by only allowing the second approval to take place a week after the first one. Instead both approvals can be given at the same time. Both Klaus Riskær Pedersen and Steam Kurs used this cheat code, which helped them gather signatures quickly. After the double approval, the signature is valid, and since the relevant law did not take into account the possibility of cheating the system, the Ministry has not been able to invalid these signatures or punish the parties. They are building a new IT system and the other parties have agreed to revise the law, so the hole should be closed in a year or two.

[Diouf]

Government, DPP, Social Liberals agree proposal to improve early retirement scheme



As a response to the Social Democrats' proposal of a right to early retirement for some (undefined groups), the Government today launched a common proposal for improved early retirement opportunities for worn-down workers with DPP and Social Liberals. While the Social Democrat proposal is a unrestricted right to retire up three years before the standard retirement age for everyone (in an undefined group of people), this new proposal is based on the individual's physical state. The current rules regarding early retirement for worn-down individuals, stipulate that you can retire up to five years before the standard retirement age if you have worked for at least 20-25 years, but now you are not able to take any job for more than 8-10 hours a week (this has been defined by each municipality, but that is the range applied). The new proposal stipulates that you can retire up to six years before the standard retirement age if you have worked for at least 20-25 years, but now you are not able to work more than 15 hours in your normal job. So previously, you could have been tested in all kind of different easier jobs, but now the standard is your normal job, which should make it easier for people who have had physical demanding jobs.

The government + DPP + Social Liberals deal makes many think of the 2010-11 deals between these parties to reduce the value of a standard early retirement possibility and reduce the length of unemployment benefits. This deal made things really hard for Helle Thorning-Schmidt after the election, as these parties retained a majority and the deal was carried through. The Social Liberals in her government had no intention to change it, so the deal was implemented despite Social Democrats and SPP being against (which angered many of their voters). However, it might not be as critical for Mette Frederiksen. This is because she does not intent to include the Social Liberals in her government, so they can't block a more expensive deal than this one. And because her relationsship with DPP is better than Thorning's, it is not unthinkable that she can make a new agreement with the red parties + DPP which is closer to Frederiksen's own proposal. However, it certainly indicates that the Social Liberals (again) has no intention to make things easy for the Social Democrats, certainly not in the government formation process.

This deal has been in the pipeline for some weeks, and widely seen as the last possible activity before the election is called. So if we are to have a double election on 26 May, the general election is to be called at latest on Monday 6 May. However, for elections on 26 May, election posters can be put up from Saturday 4 May 12.00, so if one wants a level playing field between EP and general election candidates, the election should be called before that time. There is of course also the possibility that the election is delayed to after the EP election, with 17 June as the latest possible day.

[Diouf]

Poll by Megafon for Politiken and TV2. The first one with Tough Line, and they are in! 2.7% is not far above the threshold, but it is certainly a decent omen for the party. The poll was made while a lot of attention was on the party, but in quite similar circumstances Klaus Riskær Pedersen at most managed 1.8% in one poll. And if the election is called in the next day or two, the value of newness will not wear off as easily. But it's only one poll and the campaign can change quite a lot, and not only downwards for them, one would think. Their candidate selection is certain to be very interesting. A recent documentary followed the party in the fall of 2018, and they were literally 3 men in a basement. They should be able to run candidates in all 10 constituencies, but I guess some could be quite dodgy indeed, also considering the time pressure.
Rasmus Paludan himself was apparently a member of the New Right and a candidate for the 2017 local elections, but thrown out after a speech romanticizing a potential future civil war against the muslims ("hundreds of thousands are preparing their weapons, practising how to aim with rifles", "Our streets will be turned into rivers of blood. And the blood of our enemies will end in the sewer where it belongs")

Generally, many interesting things in the poll. Megafon generally have the Social Democrats low, and here they are at 24.7%, which would be lower than in 2015. In the average of polls, they are close to 28%. On the other hand, super results for Red-Green Alliance (close to double digits), Social Liberals close to their great 2011 result (which was 9.5%) and SPP at a quite strong 7.5%.
A terrible Liberal Alliance results on 3.3%; close to their all-time low since emerging as a credible party. DPP at 12.6% would also be a massive loss.

[Diouf]

YouGov for BT with a quite extraordinary poll. Tough Line at 3.9% and New Right at 6.3%. DPP falls further to 11.2%, but the three anti-immigrant parties are at 21.4% here, so slightly higher than DPP in 2015. Social Democrats only at 23%, clearly below the 2015 result. Another horrible Liberal Alliance result at 3.3%, making them the smallest of the six right wing parties, and smallest of all 11 parties which look likely to cross the threshold.
And the centre-left to left-wing parties are only at 50.7%, while the centre-right to right-wing parties are at 49.4%. Although the right-wing side has two parties below the threshold, which still gives the left side a decent 90-85 seat lead. Also while some of other Red Bloc parties do their best to annoy the Social Democrats and put up high demands, it still looks fairly likely that the Social Democrats will gather all of them behind a government. This is more doubtful on the blue side with New Right and particularly Tough Line.

[Diouf]

Do Tough Line have any non-Islam related policies?

There is a paragraph about libertarianism in their political principles: "Libertarianism is an ideology which radically envokes the freedom and rights of individuals. The size of the state and its interference with the citizen's use of liberty should be limited to the largest degree possible. We see it as a precondition for libertarianism that the ethnonational homogeneity is restored".
So on paper it seems like they are promoting a quite radical anti-state policy, but only for ethnic Danes who live up to their definition of Danish values. But when asked concrete questions about all kinds of other issues, the tone is much more moderate.
TV2 asked about a number of policies. On early retirement, Paludan says it should be an individual judgement of whether people are worndown. If they are, they should get early retirement. He wants to abolish the regions. He wants the length of schooldays to be individualized so that smarter kids who know their stuff get off early, while those who are behind should be in school longer. He wants it too be easier for citizens to carry pistols (but say that he certainly does not want American conditions, so only a softer loosening of rules). Denmark should use 2% of GDP on defence, but only focus on self-defense, not foreign interventions. Jobcenters should be abolished, and unemployed persons should be forced into a job immediately if they can't find one themselves. Efforts should be made to save the environment locally with regards to the water environment and particle pollution, but not efforts to combat global climate change. Taxes should generally be lower, except for foreign companies. There should be more redistribution to raise the living standards of the poorest ethnic Danes.
So hardly what I would think of as a radical, ideological, libertarian set of policies.

[Diouf]

The Christian Democrats at least seem to be giving it a proper shot now. They have announced that Kristian Andersen will represent them in the election debates instead of party leader Stig Grenov. Again, it is a difficult battle, but Andersen now has the chance to make himself a familiar face and speak to dissatisfied voters from the major parties (probably primarily Liberals) throughout Western Jutland.

The Christian Democrats does not stand many chances of getting elected to parliament, but as usual there is some attention to the possibility of the party crossing the threshold by winning a constituency seat in the Western Jutland multi-member constituency. Although, in 2015 they were almost as close to crossing the threshold nationally as getting a seat in the West. Nationally, 70.380 votes were required to cross the treshold, but the party only received 29.077 (41.3%), while they in Western Jutland needed 17.907 votes to win a seat, but only received 7.646 (42.7%). So if they increase their vote proportionally, they will be likely to cross the 2% national threshold at around the same time as winning a Western Jutland seat.

However, there is some hope that they could increase their vote more in Western Jutland. The popular principial at a continuation school, Kristian Andersen, is running in Western Jutland. He is very popular in Ringkøbing-Skjern, where he incresed the party's fortunes to 15.5% in the 2017 local elections, winning the most personal votes (3.618), winning six seats and almost becoming mayor (in the end, the Social Democrats supported the Liberals instead). Furthermore, the very popular local Liberal Esben Lunde Larsen, who personally received 24%(8.622) of all votes in Ringkøbing-Skjern in the 2015 general election, is not running this time, and the Liberals' new candidate in the area is not a local. Therefore Andersen and the Christian Democrats hope they can convince many of his former voters to vote for them. And there seems to be some local support for the idea. The local newspaper focus intensely on the Liberal-KD battle, and a Liberal councillor in Ringkøbing-Skjern, Svend Boye Thomsen, resigned from the Liberals in order to become campaign leader for Andersen.

The chances still seem quite low. Andersen will need to do really well locally as well as the party doing respectively in big towns in the constituency like Viborg, Silkeborg, Skive and Struer, where they won less than 2% in 2015. And there might not be a lot of people in these towns, who knows Andersen (or their local KD candidate). It would probably have helped if the party had made him national leader, but they for some reason continue with the hapless non-entity Stig Grenov, who won 80 personal votes in the 2017 local elections in Hørsholm in Northern Zealand.

[Diouf]

New Voxmeter poll. Tough Line also above the threshold here, but only just (2.4%) and they send the New Right all the way down to 0.9% and DPP down to 12.2%. Fair to say that there is a fair bit of discrepancy between the polling firms. They have the Social Democrats still high at +27%, with Red-Green Alliance crossing 10% and good SPP and Social Liberal results, which means there is still a clear majority for the centre-left to left-wing parties.

[Diouf]

Stram Kurs (Tough Line) has been officially approved to run in the election, and will use the letter P (for Paludan I would imagine. Today Radio24/7 revealed that Paludan was sentenced a fine of 4 000 DKK (535 euro) for insulting a police officer in 2015; he called the police officer "a fascist stromtrooper", "a criminal punk" and "a loser with 0.0% human value". As a part of his defence, Paludan used the fact that he was in an accident in 2005, where he hit his head to the degree that it has changed his behaviour. Since then, he has been easily annoyed with other people and lost 25% of his ability to work (insurance term).

[Diouf]

The last quarter of Altinget's series of 100 events that mattered in this term:

76. The appearance of wolves in Jutland with several attacks on sheep causes a lot of displeasure. However, the wolf is protected, and the government does not manage to find a way to make it easier to shoot the wolves legally due to big divides between the parties in parliament and between agriculture and nature organizations. Similarly EU directives limit the playing field.
77. Another small reshuffle when longtime Conservative minister Brian Mikkelsen retires as Minister of Business. He is replaced by one of the party's big hopes, Rasmus Jarlov.
78. Alternative leader Uffe Elbæk announces that he himself wants to be PM, and wants to pursue that plan after the election.
79. All parties in parliament agree a Energy Package to build three additional clusters of sea-based wind turbines and expand the production of green biogas.
80. Denmark is compared to Venezuela as another example of a failed Socialist country on Fox News. This causes several politicians to complain, and Social Democrat MP Dan Jørgensen manages to make a viral response video, that ends up with him meeting Bernie Sanders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ1gjObNDv8
81. The exceptionally hot summer causes problems for the farmers and makes climate change rise as an important political topic. A small support package is made for farmers which should make it easier for them to be allowed to water their fields, and avoid paying some tariffs for a year.
82. The CEO for Danske Bank, Thomas Borgen, resigns after the revelation of a major money laundering scandal through the bank's Estonian branch. The Danish regulatory authority has failed to take action during several years. Politicians agree to tighten the reviews and increase the punishments in these cases.
83 The Iranian security service tries to assassinate member of an Iranian resistance movement in Denmark, but the plot is stopped by the Danish authorities. Denmark and EU make sanctions towards several members of the security forces.
84. The popular folk musician Kim Larsen dies, and many cities and towns celebrate his legacy. Some of his movies and songs in the 70es were in support of the left-wing squatters in Copenhagen, but in recent years, his biggest political objections were against smoking restrictions and other interference in the living habits of ordinary people.
85. Another scandal hits the administration of funds in the Danish public sector. An employee in the Danish Agency for Social Programs have managed to transfer 111 million DKK (15 million euro) to herself over several years. After weeks with a global arrest order, she is found in South Africa.
86. The Alternative crisis intensifies when their Copenhagen Mayor of Culture, Niko Grünfeld, resigns after heavy criticism regarding false information in his CV and an expensive re-decoration of the mayor's office.
87. The Minister of Climate and Energy, Lars Christian Lilleholt, sacks the chair of the Climate Council, Peter Birch, after a very critial report about the pace of the government's actions to combat climate change.
88. The government and DPP agree a 2019 budget. Some of the significant aspects are higher pensions and moving foreign criminals waiting for deportation to a remote island.
89. The Social Democrats introduce their big pension plan, where they want to give some groups of people a right to retire up to three years before the standard retirement age. It it not defined which groups of persons will be included.
90. Former Liberal MEP, serial innovator and financial fraud convict Klaus Riskær Pedersen manages to get the party in his own name on the ballot for the general election. Partly because someone around him found a way to go around the signature approval system, so that the necessary double approval isn't needed.
91. The so-called paradigm shift is approved by the government, Social Democrats and DPP. It wants the focus to be on return for the refugees coming to Denmark. Their benefits are lowered, and the fact that someone has worked for some period in Denmark should be regarded as less of a hindrance for deportation when reviewed by the relevant immigration authority.
92. The PM, the Minister of Business and the Copenhagen Mayor can happily announce that Tour de France will start in Copenhagen in 2021.
93. Several cases of inappropriate behaviour in political youth parties are revealed. The allegations are primarily among members in Liberal Alliance youth, but it is also revealed that a Social Democrat Youth party leader resigned due to inappropriate behaviour towards girls, but made up another reason publicly with the party's support.
94. Conservative MP Mette Abildgaard causes some headlines when she takes her baby into parliament to vote, only for speaker Pia Kjærsgaard to tell a parliamentary helper to show her out.
95. The government and DPP agree on their health care proposal which includes closing the regions, so that some decisions are centralized at the Health Ministry and others are de-centralized in clusters of municipalities. The Liberal leaders and councillors in regions as well as several Jutlandic members are opposed to the proposal.
96. The Social Liberals states that they want Mette Frederiksen to renege on parts of the so-called paradigm shift on immigration if she is to have their support to become PM.
97. A Red Cross report is very critical regarding the conditions for children at Sjælsmark, a center for rejected asylum seekers. 6/10 children show symptoms of psychiatric conditions according to the report. Most of the non-Social Democrat centre-left parties demand action, and improved conditions for the children (or even letting them out of the centers)
98. The potential Brexit dates cause a lot of disturbances for Danish companies, farmes and fishermen, but the date is again postponed.
99. Red-Green leader Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen is announced as the new leader of the Danish branch of Save the Children. Due to the Red-Green rotation rules, she cannot stand for parliament again in 2019.
100. Stram Kurs (Tough Line) catches enough signatures to secure its spot on the ballot. Many of the signatures are collected in less than a month due to attacks and crimes by left-wing anarchists and criminal immigrants after a Rasmus Paludan quran show in Copenhagen.

https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/182034-husker-du-her-er-de-100-vigtigste-begivenheder-fra-valgperioden

[Diouf]

It's going to be June 5th. Could mgop or a mod add this to the thread title?

Would also be nice with a poll with all the parties at the top.

And perhaps add the relevant atlas links regarding this term to the opening post. They can be seen in my post mid-page on page2

[Diouf]

Would also be nice with a poll with all the parties at the top.

This would be better for Individual Politics. We don't really want all sorts of random comments with "Social Democrats" or "Danish People's Party, yay!" here, right?

Sounds fine

[Diouf]

The first party leader debates will take place today. One at 19 at DR1, and 20 55 at TV2. Mette Frederiksen is ill, so she is not taking part. Instead the party's political spokesperson Nicolai Wammen will represent the party. It is unclear who will represent the Christian Democrats. The TV stations said they couldn't send anyone else than party leader Stig Grenov, but they insist they will use different candidates in the debates.

[Diouf]

https://twitter.com/MsMariaOien/status/1125816555621711877?s=19

The first two debates are over. 13 party leaders which can of course be chaotic, but I think it went okay. They debated early retirement and worn down workers (which focused on the proposals from Social Democrats and Government+DPP+SocLibs). Much of it was questions to the Social Democrats from right wing parties about their proposals, and whether they would be more concrete in defining the groups which would get a right to retire early. Makes them look a bit defensive and with 'political answers' which doesn't say a lot. But it gives them a lot of attention on the proposals, which I think they are ultimately happy about. Red Greens are strong on opposition to the automatic rise in the retirement age as the living age increases.
Climate and Environment can quickly become unfocused with each party mentioning several proposals. Farmers and agriculture was a recurring theme.
On immigration, Paludan as expected got quite some attention. He talked about population replacement, deporting hundreds of thousands and even veered shortly into IQ. Made it a bit harder for DPP and New Right to win that agenda.
Christian Democrats was represented by party leader Stig Grenov in the first, and young deputy leader Isabella Arendt in the second one. The latter did much better. Grenov mostly focused on talking against the government's immigration policies, while Arendt was a clearer centre-right voice with some differences. Other parties praised her, and Uffe Elbæk even said he hoped they would get in during the debate.
Klaus Riskær Pedersen made a pitch as an experienced statesman, who urged 'us politicians' to sit down and find some good, common solutions and then introduced one of his own ideas. Funny by a party which polls below 1%, but a calmer tone might not be a bad pitch when others throw around tough language and demands.

[Diouf]

Average of polls from Gallup, Megafon, Epinion, Norstat, YouGov and Voxmeter in the first days of the campaign.

Social Democrats 26.6% 48 seats
Social Liberals 7.2% 13 seats
Conservatives 4.6% 8 seats
New Right 2.9% 5 seats
Klaus Riskær Pedersen 0.6% 0 seats
SPP 7.4% 13 seats
Liberal Alliance 3.8% 7 seats
Christian Democrats 1.1% 0 seats
DPP 12.0% 21 seats
Tough Line 3.0% 5 seats
Liberals 18.2% 33 seats
Red-Green Alliance 9.0% 16 seats
Alternative 3.4% 6 seats

So overall 46.1% and 79 seats for centre-right to far right (although it doesn't sound like New Right and Tough Line could support Løkke as PM), while centre-left to far left is on 53.6% and 96 seats. 

[Diouf]

Yikes, so the borderline fascists will actually make it?

Seems fairly likely at the moment. They are above the threshold in 5 of the 6 polls. It is still early days, and the party is very recent on the ballot. They have received a high degree of attention in the first days. As the pic shows, the party was 4th most mentioned in articles and Rasmus Paludan 3rd most mentioned party leader. If that attention fizzles out, the party might fall, but it doesn't look like happening right now. Paludan's aggressive language and attacks draws attention, and many of his opponents feel called to express how much they dislike him. Also he has been quite good in releasing three somewhat notable candidates one by one, so that he gets more attention each time. They are "artist" Uwe Max Jensen, who is mostly known for his fondness of using his pee and excrements in his own artworks or to "rearrange" other's artworks. In 2016, he received a sentence of 30 days for assault against two museum employees, who tried to stop him from peeing on an artwork in a museum in Aalborg. Professor in developmental psychology, Helmut Nyborg, who is known for his controversial theories about IQ, with theories about a strong degree of inheritance intelligence, and that there are generel intelligence differences between groups (men more intelligent than women, white more than intelligent than blacks etc.). Finally, catholic theologian Iben Thranholm has also been revealed as a candidate. She has been a commentator in a mainstream newspaper, but she is also known for strong pro-Russian views and following conspiracy theories (Clinton is a satanist, atheists burned down Notre Dame etc.).

[Diouf]

Are Tough Line against non-Muslim immigrants? Do they want to repatriate all non-ethnic Danes?

The party states that only Danes should live in Denmark. Their definition of Danes are persons, who "were ethnically Danes by birth or adopted infants", have Danish heritage and Danish as first language, have only had Danish citizenship and embraces Danish culture. Danish heritage and ethnicity is not defined in the programme, but in a TV interview he said that the limit would likely be at least two Danish grandparents (which must mean by citizenship).
They then define exceptions. Tourists and highly qualified labour can be granted temporary stay. Finally, spouses with a Western European background can be allowed to stay permanently in Denmark (but will have to pay to for use of the public sector).

[Diouf]

What is their stance on Greenland and Greenlanders?

There is nothing on their web page nor can I find any comments from Paludan, so I don't really know. And it is not really a topic that gets a lot of exposure in the campaign, so I don't know if we will find out soon.

[Diouf]

Poling from Bornholm multi-member constituency. The constituency only has two constituency seats. Social Democrats and Liberals normally win a seat each; the last time it was different was in 1973 when the Progress Party beat the Liberals to the second seat. The constituency seats are distributed by standard D'Hondt (with divisors 1, 2, 3 etc.), so if the Social Democrats are twice as big as the 2nd place finisher, they will win both seats. And they are not far from it here. With the Liberals on 19.8%, this means getting 39.6%. They are on 37.9% in this poll.
In 2015, DPP was only 0.4% behind Liberals, but like in the rest of Denmark, they are a lot down here (and without New Right and Tough Line getting many votes).

[Diouf]

The Christian Democrat leader Stig Grenov has gone on leave due to stress for the rest of the campaign. Therefore 26-year old deputy leader Isabella Arendt takes over as leader during the campaign. She impressed in the TV2 debate, and has already received more attention than Grenov in the campaign. It is still a difficult battle for the party, but this might give them a little more hope.

[Diouf]

Given the Social Democrat's rightward shift on migration, will ethnic voters/"ghetto" residents still vote for them, or will they either defect or not bother voting? (None of the other parties seem like ideal outfits for that niche). Heck, could Denmark ever see a DENK style formation, given the low threshold and persistent ethnic strife?

It will be interesting to see. I haven't been able to find any polling since their shift. At the 2017 local elections, they still seemed to dominate in the immigration-heavy areas. SPP and Red-Green Alliance are probably the parties one would normally think of as potentially attracting some of these voters, but the Alternative seems to be doing it most visibly. The previous leader of the immigrant party National Party, Kashif Ahmad, is running for the party in Copenhagen. And I would think he would be among their most-voted candidates, although they are likely to decline to one seat for party leader Uffe Elbæk. Sikandar Siddique, who was involved with hardline islamists Hizb ut-Tahrir in the early 00es, is also running for the Alternative in Copenhagen Environs. And it was very weird when party leader Uffe Elbæk and EP lead candidate Rasmus Nordqvist, who are normally very focused on gender equality in debate panels etc., joined Siddique for a male-only party event in the ghetto in Albertslund. So we could potentially see scandals similar to the ones regarding the Greens in Sweden. Since the party does not have a lot of notable candidates in many areas, it is not unthinkable that one of their new immigrant candidates could do a Leila Ali-Elmi and be elected MP in an upset.

The National Party never really got off the ground. Perhaps due to poor organization, because Ahmad was from a small Muslim ahmadiyya group, or because they associated themselves with poet Yahya Hassan, who was very critical about the hypocrisy and life style of many ghetto immigrants. But I would certainly not rule off another DENK like party having more success; it seems quite likely.

[Diouf]

The Danish Electoral System

In this election, the candidates fight for 179 seats. 175 in Denmark, 2 in Greenland and 2 on the Faroe Islands. Here I will describe the electoral system used.
First off, there are five different levels in Denmark in the electoral system. The top one is Denmark at-large. The second layer is the three electoral provinces (Metropolitan Copenhagen, Sealand-Southern Denmark, and Northern and Central Jutland). The three provinces each consist of 3-4 multi-member constituencies. The multi-member constituencies each have 2-13 nomination districts. And in each nomination district, there is a number of polling places. In the map at the bottom, one can see the multi-member constituencies and nomination districts drawn up.

The 175 seats are divided into 135 constituency seats and 40 compensatory seats. The 135 constituency seats are divided at the multi-member constituency level. The smallest constituency, Bornholm, has 2 constituency seats, while the largest, Zealand, has 20 constituency seats. The electoral method starts out with distributing these constituency seats in each constituency by using the D'Hondt method with the divisors 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.

The next step is to figure out which parties are eligible for the 40 compensatory seats. This eligibility can be achieved in three different ways. The first way is to have won a constituency seat. The second way is to have achieved at least 2% in Denmark at-large. The third way is to pass a vote ratio in 2 of the 3 electoral provinces. This vote ratio is the number of valid votes cast/the number of constituency seats. In Sealand-Southern Denmark in 2015, the ratio was 1 280 794/50= 25 615.8, rounded up to 25 616. AFAIK, no party has become eligible for compensatory seats only by achieving the third criteria. Normally, such a party will either have won a constituency seat or crossed 2% nationally as well. I guess, the most likely option is if a party is really weak in Metropolitan Copenhagen, while being just below the constituency seat threshold in the rest of the country.
Once you know which parties are eligible, you are ready to distribute the compensatory seats. You do this by calculating how many seats each party has deserved in total. Each party's number of votes is divided by the number of votes for all eligible parties and then multiplicated by 1.75. The party then deserves the number of seats corresponding to the full number, and the remaining seats are distributed to the highest remainders. So for SPP in 2015, the calculation is 147 578/ 3 486 844 X 1.75 = 7.407. So the party deserves 7 seats as the 0.407 was not among the biggest remainders.
However, before these seats are safe, we have to check whether any parties have won more constituency seats than the total deserved seat number, i.e. Überhangmandate. The last time these were in play were in 1947 as seen in the pic below. Here the Liberals won 8 constituency seats more than deserved in total. This was due to their strength in the smaller jutlandic constituencies at the time, and by smartly letting the Capital Liberals run as their own party. If a party wins more constituency seats than deserved seats on the national level, the party gets to keep all those seats. You then draw this party and its seats out of the calculation (i.e. Liberals and their 46 seats), and calculate how many seats each remaining party deserve from the remaining seats. Überhangmandate are much less likely to occur now due to the increase in size of constituencies.
Once each party knows how many compensatory seats it has won, these must be distributed among the parties geographically. This first happens at the province levels, where pure Sainte-Laguë (divisors 1, 3, 5) are used to determine the party quotas. Each province has a fixed number of compensatory seats. Then the seats are distributed to parties in each province across the constituencies. Here the divisors 1, 4, 7, 10 are used. The number of compensatory seats on constituency level is not fixed; it simply depends on where the parties have their biggest remaining quotas. So in 2015, only 1 of the 11 compensatory seats in Metropolitan Copenhagen was distributed in the Copenhagen multi-member constituency.
Later, I will make on post on how the seats are distributed between the candidates in the parties. However, the rules for this has been changed during this term to make it more complicated by allowing the parties to choose between additional different systems. So I would like to wait until the parties have announced which system they will use.

[Diouf]

Hvem Stemmer Hvad made the below chart, which shows whether any of the parties are likely to be eligible for compensatory seats without reaching the 2% threshold. The calculation is based on the 2015 result, and then proportionally lowering/raising the party's percentage. It shows that two parties, Christian Democrats and Alternative, are likely to be eligible based on constituency seats. With a proportional rise, the Christian Democrats win a constituency seat in Western Jutland on 1.91% nationally, while the Alternative retains their presence in parliament even on 1.97% nationally, by winning a constituency seat in Copenhagen.
It also shows which parties could actually get in based on the third criteria, hitting the vote ratio in 2/3 provinces. The Liberals would actually manage that, because they have distribution mentioned in the above post. They are weakest in Metropolitan Copenhagen, and a fairly equal popularity outside of that. So even if they got just below 1.9% nationally, they would still get into parliament. The Social Democrats are also quite close to be able to pull this off based on the 2015 result. And if, as I expect, there will be a bigger gap between their vote in Metropolitan Copenhagen and elsewhere this year, then it would probably be true for them. Although of course, neither the Liberals nor the Social Democrats are in threshold danger, while Christian Democrats and probably also Alternative are. Since this is based on 2015 result, it does not take into account the three new parties, and how their vote distribution could be.

[Diouf]

The social liberals: Reformist center-left party, staunchly left-wing on social issues and centrists on economic issues. They are NOT a right-wing party on economic issues, which is often wrongfully assumed. The social liberals do not think high taxes are unfair, like most blue bloc parties. The party only wants to lower taxes if it is deemed advantageous for the overall economy. The default position of the party is to work with social democrats. They have two times in history supported blue bloc governments (1968-1971 and 1982-1993), but both of those scenarios required some special circumstances to happen and a loooot has happened since then.

Unlike the Blue Bloc parties who only wants to lover taxes to be evil