The Great Nordic Thread

[Diouf]

No-confidence vote on Frp-star provides early test of majority cohesion



Frp's most controversial and most popular minister, Sylvi Listhaug, will face a no-confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday. Listhaug, who is minister of Justice and Immigration, has faced heavy criticism after a Facebook post a week ago, where she severely criticized Ap for not supporting a new proposal that would allow citizenship to be revoked for "persons who are a threat to the nation" without going through a traditional court case. The line that caught ire in particular was her statement that "Ap cares more about the right of terrorists than the security of the nation". Opposition parties were quick to denounce the comments and weave it into the context of the Utøya Massacre. Even Sp somewhat surprisingly has stated that they will vote for a no-confidence vote in Listhaug.

So now the main question is what KrF will vote? They are generally opposed to Frp's stance on migration, and, like Ap, voted against the citizenship proposal. However, voting to remove Listhaug will certainly cause chaos in the governing majority. Frp would not really be able to live with that, so they could very well leave the government. And Frp repeated throughout the election that they would not support a government, that they weren't a part of. A compromise could perhaps be found with a restructuring of Listhaug's portfolio, but with her prominence on the immigration topic, it is hard to see a satisfactory solution for Frp. Perhaps PM Solberg could make the choice easier for Krp by stating that the whole government will resign, if Listhaug receives a no-confidence motion. Even if the matter is resolved, it has already caused deep fractions inside the government between Venstre and Frp.

In the latest pollofpolls.no average, the governing majority leads 88-81 in seats despite KrF being just below the threshold. Ap is down on 23.6% (-3.8%) and Høyre up to 28.0% (+3.0). Solberg's personal popularity is quite high, so she has gained a bit from both swing voters and Frp voters, while Ap has been tormented by a #MeToo scandal with Trond Giske and internal divisions after the electoral defeat.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

I don't have anything substantial to contribute, but I would like to say (as a recent viewer of the thread) that I'm appreciating these informative updates! Do you have any recommendations for in-depth english language sources on Danish politics?

[DavidB.]

Yeah, Diouf, your updates are absolutely invaluable.

[Diouf]

Thanks for the praise!

I unfortunately don't know of any in-depth English coverage of Danish politics. thelocal has subsidaries in all scandinavian countries (.no .se .dk), but they are generally shorter news updates. Also they seem aimed at foreigners in these countries, so perhaps naturally they tend towards being skeptical of retrictions on immigration.

[DavidB.]

I have some experience with Danish and understand written Danish quite well, I have also analyzed Danish-language political content during my studies. It's spoken Danish that's difficult to me, though still much easier than spoken Swedish But I won't shy away from reading Danish sources in case you link them. I'm not impressed by the quality of TheLocal, to put it mildly.

[Diouf]

KrF's national committee recommends no-confidence vote in Listhaug


Today, KrF's national committee met, and a majority of its members recommended that KrF's parliamentary group votes for the no-confidence motion against Sylvi Listhaug tomorrow. The comittee consists of the leaders of the different party regions, and its decision is not binding on the parliamentary group, although it is seen as quite influential. However, it is also clear that the party is split on how to handle this, as several members of the committee publicly expressed their opposition on taking down Listhaug.

Most media reports suggest that Erna Solberg will indeed make tomorrow's vote a cabinet question, so a no-confidence vote will take down the whole government. Can KrF stand for that pressure? An important thing to remember is that Norway cannot have early elections, so if the government falls, the same parliament will have to find a new government for the next 3.5 years. In the last days of the election campaign, Krf committed to Solberg as PM, so they can hardly let Ap and Gahr Støre take over the reins. Siding with the centre-left would certainly also upset a significart part of the party.

[Diouf]

Listhaug resigns - leaves with a barrel of attacks

Justice and Immigration Minister Sylvi Listhaug decided to resign this morning. This was quite surprising as there was no indication that neither PM Solberg or Frp leader Jensen had pushed her into this. Had this been about many other ministers, she would have perhaps quickly been told politely to step back, but this would be very unlikely with a so symbolic minister as Listhaug. Her own reasoning for resigning is that she did not want Frp to lose the power of government participation nor risk Gahr Støre taking over as PM "who would be a disaster for Norway". KrF is called a "clueless party". She also underlined the importance of being able to speak her mind, particularly on immigration, which she sees as the most important topic for decades to come. So it seems that Listhaug chose martyrdom, and will now be in a position to speak even freer on issues of immigration. That might help Frp, but will hardly lower tensions in the governing majority.

[Diouf]

This is only one poll and taken yesterday after Listhaug's decision to resign, but it shows a huge increase for Frp. +9.8% compared to the previous Kantar poll, and +5.4% compared to the 2017 election. Also a massive centre-right majority. Interesting how much of this bounce will stay.

[Diouf]

Poll by Gallup for Berlingske. The poll is only made with voters from the Copenhagen and the Copenhagen Environs multimember constituencies. The graphic below should be zoomable as a picture, and it shows four different things. The top picture is simply a map of the two constituencies to show which municipalities are covered. The second pictures show the Liberals' results in the two constituencies since 2005. The third picture shows the distribution between the blocs in 2015 and in the poll. Finally, the fourth picture shows the change since 2015 on a party basis. The Social Democrats are lower than in 2015, while the Social Liberals and SPP make strong progress and the Red-Green Alliance is the second-largest party. The Social Democrat decline in the capital area is likely due to their policy changes, particularly on immigration and law and order, but also in supporting moving state jobs from Copenhagen to the rest of the country. Were the Social Democrats to hit the same nationwide figures as in 2015 (currently they are 0.5% above it in the polling average), I would think that they would go back in Copenhagen (and Aarhus?) and make progress in mid-sized towns. Liberal Alliance is halved, and both the Liberals and DPP are below 12%. The Conservatives make slight progress, perhaps enough to win a seat in Frederiksberg which they lost for the first time ever in 2015, while the New Right is at around the same point as in Gallup's national polls.

[Helsinkian]

Big differences in party support among young voters and older voters in Finland. SDP is number one among 50+ voters but only fifth among voters under 35. And with the Greens the situation is inverted.

18 to 34 voters:



50+ voters:



The numbers are from the YLE poll where the topline results were these:

[DavidB.]

Interesting and encouraging that PS do better with young voters than on average. Did not expect KESK to do so well with that demographic though. Which young voters would vote for KESK?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

What is MUU?

[Helsinkian]

Interesting and encouraging that PS do better with young voters than on average. Did not expect KESK to do so well with that demographic though. Which young voters would vote for KESK?

Young people who live in rural communities where the support for Centre is still often inherited from the parents. Centre is also traditionally the party of the Laestadians who have plenty of children because they don't believe in birth control.

What is MUU?

That's "other".

[Diouf]

New Right leader takes on Thulesen Dahl at his home turf



New Right leader Pernille Vermund has decided to run in the Southern Jutland multi-member constituency at the next general election. This means she will face off directly against DPP leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl in a constituency, where Thulesen Dahl and DPP dominated in 2015. The party won 28.4% and Thulesen Dahl won 57.371 personal votes (the highest tally in the country). He has lived in the town of Thyregod (1.300 inhabitants) in the constituency for several years, while Vermund has lived most of her life in Northern Zealand, where she ran as a candidate for the Conservatives in 2015. So Vermund can obviously fall in the trap of being a cocky "foreigner" from the wealthy Whisky Belt coming to Southern Jutland, but this choice will also give her the possibility of several debates against Thulelsen Dahl and the media attention that will follow from these clashes.

It has been clear for a while that Vermund would not run in her native Northern Zealand. Mette Thiesen, who was the only New Right candidate to win a councillor seat in the 2017 local elections, is already a candidate in Northern Zealand, where she is a councillor in Hillerød. A small, new party needs to spread out its profiles, and if Vermund ran in Northern Zealand as well, Thiesen would basically have no chance of being elected. Also the constituency is not that big with 290.000 votes in 2015. So the question then was basically whether she would run in Zealand or Southern Jutland. Both are big constituencies, 530.000 and 450.000 votes in 2015 respectively, and both had a big DPP vote to eat into, 25.6% and 28.4% respectively. Zealand would have seen her up against among others, PM Løkke Rasmussen and Social Liberal MP Zenia Stampe, who due to her far-left position on immigration is a favoured hate symbol for the right. Also there are many DPP voters without Thulelsen Dahl or Kjærsgaard as a main vote getter. I thought, she would choose Zealand for those reasons, and because it's far closer to home, so she would have less of an outsider mark. But she chose to take on Thulelsen Dahl directly, which will certainly be interesting.

In Northern Zealand, we will likely see another hefty DPP-New Right battle in a younger version. The aforementioned Thiesen is running for the New Right, and there are strong rumours that MEP Morten Messerschmidt will return as a candidate for the DPP in the constituency. Messerschmidt won a record 465.758 personal votes in the 2014 European elections, where the whole country is one constituency, but has been plagued by scandals about misuse of EU funds and a long sick leave as a result.

[Diouf]

Analysis by Altinget based on Norstat polling:

The Liberal Alliance is on average polling 5.3% currently compared to 7.5% at the 2015 general election and 8.4% in August 2016. This means the party has lost around 77.000 voters net since the 2015 election. One seat is worth around 20.000 votes, so this means they have lost almost 4 seats out of the thirteen, they won in 2015. Below the net movements to other parties can be seen. The movements are fairly evenly spread across a number of parties. The New Right is the biggest beneficiary, and has won a seat worth of votes from LA so far, which is presumably mostly from the party's hard-right wing. The coalition partners in the Liberals and Conservatives have also taken a chunk each; presumably as similar, but more competent alternatives. The Social Liberals have also managed to claw a few votes across the bloc boundary; most likely some of the young, wealthy, urban voters, who are dissatisfied with the right-wing immigration policies it has helped carry through.

[Diouf]

Fynd/Portalin poll in Faroe Islands for the next Danish general election.

It looks like another tight four way race for the two seats. In 2015, Javnaðarflokkurin (Social Democrats) and Tjóðveldi (Green-Left Republicans) finished first and second, which meant both Faroese MPs are supporters of the Red Bloc. However, it looks like Sambandsflokkurin (agrarian, Unionist) will win back a seat for the Blue Bloc, and Fólkaflokkurin (Conservative, pro-independence) is so close in 3rd place, that two Blue seats are certainly possible. Framsókn (Liberal, pro-independence), which is a part of the Faroese government with Social Democrats and Republicans, has made progress to 5%.

[Helsinkian]

Harry Harkimo, MP of Finland's National Coalition Party, announced yesterday that he was leaving the NCP, explaining the move by his opposition to the healthcare and welfare reforms the government is pushing as well as to what he perceived to be an "authoritarian" leadership style of the NCP chairman Petteri Orpo.

Though he has not yet commented on his future moves, there are rumours that he might be starting a new party together with Mikael Jungner, the former party secretary of the Social Democrats who recently left that party. Jungner had a reputation as a centrist, market friendly Social Democrat when he was still in the party. Harkimo is a business man, majority owner of the KHL hockey team Jokerit and he used to host the Finnish version of The Apprentice TV show.

If there were to be a new party it would apparently be "Macronite" in ideology: socially liberal, pro-free-market, pro-EU. This speculation is strengthened by the fact that Harkimo recently registered an association called "Movement Now" (the Finnish name, "Liike Nyt", sounds equally awkward as the translation) which has some echoes to "En Marche". According to its own description the movement aims at "reforming the way politics is practiced".

[Helsinkian]

^ Harkimo and Jungner confirmed that they have founded this "Movement Now". However, it appears that they intend it to be merely a registered association and a pressure group, and not a party. It is unclear whether they inted to run candidates in elections at some point.

[Helsinkian]

Kaj Turunen, Blue Reform MP, has defected to the National Coalition Party. With Blue Reform polling at 1.5%, I bet this won't be the last such defection. Amusingly, the Blue Reform leaderships has the nerve to be outraged and accuse the NCP of poaching their MPs; these being the same people who left the Finns Party last summer.

[Diouf]

Agreement on public sector labour conditions



For the last two months, the main topic in Denmark has been the negotiations on working conditions between the trade unions and the state, the regions and the municipalities. Failure to reach an outcome would have resulted in a major strike and lockout, which would have grinded Denmark to a halt. With more than 800.000 public sector workers in the country, many voters are directly affected by the outcome and many more have sympathy with the public sector workers (with the trade unions succesfully getting attention towards lowly paid care workers instead of evil highly paid academics). In recent days, there have been agreements on the municipial and regional level, and today, there was an agreement on the state level. The three main topics for the workers have been salaries,  securing the paid lunch break (30 minutes) and a new deal on teachers' working time. The final deals give a salary increase of 8.1% over the next three years, the paid lunch break for academics was agreed upon by them giving up 0.35% of that salary increase, and a fudge was made on teachers' working conditions (a common working group will look at it). The trade union members will now have to vote on the deals, and most are expected to accept it, with the possible exception of the teachers. The teachers are still bitter after 2013, when the Thorning government (with broad support from centre-right and DPP) made a new school reform with longer days, and then lockouted the teachers for several weeks before setting their working conditons by law (more hours spend teaching, less flexible planning of own schedule for teachers, while school leaders can make more decisions). The teachers really hoped to get a better deal this time, but instead it ended in a fudge. The question is whether the teachers wants another expensive strike/lockout with no guarantee that it will result in better conditions.

Politically, the focus on the workers' conditions have caused some voter movements, mostly among the Red Bloc parties. The Red-Green Alliance and the SPP are traditional class war parties, and have clearly and loudly cheered on the trade unions, and since the end of February, they have increased in the polling average (from 8.4% and 4.9% to 9.6 and 5.8%). The Social Liberals have tried to make up for the 2013 conflict by calling for better conditions for the teachers, traditionally Social Liberal voters, which can have helped them move from 5 to 5.7%. Labour conflict is a terrible topic for a post-modern project like the Alternative, who has seen their share eroded further from 4.5% to 3.9%. The Social Democrats have mainly stayed silent (along with the government) due to the traditional habit that the responsible parties don't interfere in negotiations between workers and employers unless a strike/lockout is in place (the so-called Danish model). The party has declined from 28.8% to 26.9%. For the centre-right, the most important development is perhaps that Sophie Løhde (in the picture), Minister for (Innovation in) the Public Sector, as the leading state negotiator has managed to get a deal in a difficult area. She was quite popular as Health Minister, where she could mostly announce more money for good things, but she has done reasonably well in her biggest test in this new position, where she plays the role as the evil employer. This should help her chances to become Liberal deputy leader when Løkke is replaced as leader by current deputy leader Kristian Jensen (which is likely to happen after after a general election defeat).

Other news

It seems very likely that there will be a government reshuffle soon. Minister of Higher Education and Research, Søren Pind, has been clearly disappointed after no longer being Minister of Justice. His main focus in recent months has been his campaign on increasing the water pressure in Copenhagen, and in the last week it became known that he had applied to become Director of the Royal Theatre (but was rejected shortly before the goalline due to opposition from the left-winged employees and artists). Additionally, it was revealed that he as Minister of Justice (unsuccesfully) tried to push Copenhagen Mayor Frank Jensen into erecting a Ronald Reagan statue in Copenhagen as a reward for Pind helping Jensen with easier rules for surveillance in public housing areas. So Pind clearly wants to move on, which would prompt a reshuffle. The question is how large it will be and whether the Conservatives (unlikely) and Liberal Alliance (perhaps) will make changes as well.

Social Democrat rebel MP, Mette Gjerskov, who won the 179th and final seat in the 2015 election, has faced considerable headwind in recent weeks after her repeated opposition to the party's tougher immigration policies. First, she was challenged as candidate in her Roskilde district by Niels Jespersen, who was supported openly by the local mayor and trade union and (tacitly) by the party leadership. However, Gjerskov won the vote in the local party clearly by 120-33 and stays as a candidate. There is some discussion about whether this mostly reflects a party membership that is still soft on immigration or simply that it is very hard to come in and challenge an incumbent MP who have done nothing to offend her local members. A few weeks after, the party decided to remove her from her role as Spokesperson on Development Aid, so she can no longer speak on behalf of the party.

Finally, the emergence of wolves in Jutland has caused heavy opposition locally and one local is now charged for killing a wolf, while others cheer on the increased diversity in the Danish nature. The Blue Bloc is trying to find ways to make it easier to kill the wolves legally (which is currently protected by an EU directive), while most of the Red Bloc parties want to keep the wolves. The Social Democrats seem in doubt about what to do.

[Diouf]

It seems very likely that there will be a government reshuffle soon. Minister of Higher Education and Research, Søren Pind, has been clearly disappointed after no longer being Minister of Justice. His main focus in recent months has been his campaign on increasing the water pressure in Copenhagen, and in the last week it became known that he had applied to become Director of the Royal Theatre (but was rejected shortly before the goalline due to opposition from the left-winged employees and artists). Additionally, it was revealed that he as Minister of Justice (unsuccesfully) tried to push Copenhagen Mayor Frank Jensen into erecting a Ronald Reagan statue in Copenhagen as a reward for Pind helping Jensen with easier rules for surveillance in public housing areas. So Pind clearly wants to move on, which would prompt a reshuffle. The question is how large it will be and whether the Conservatives (unlikely) and Liberal Alliance (perhaps) will make changes as well.

Søren Pind announced today that he is resigning from politics, both as a Minister and as an MP. Suprisingly, the Liberal Minister of Environment and Food, Esben Lunde Larsen, announced that he would leave as minister as well and not run in the next general election. Løkke has announced that the government reshuffle will be tomorrow morning.

Søren Pind has been a prominent figure in the Liberals for decades. In many years, he played a central role in Copenhagen politics. He was elected to the City Council in 1994, and already in 1998 he became Mayor for Buildings and Technics, the most important post after the Lord Mayor, as the youngest mayor ever in Denmark (28 years old). With support from the Social Liberals and a Liberal wave in 2001, he was the best bid for a Liberal Lord Mayor in Copenhagen in recent history, but despite a great personal election for Pind, the Red parties still won a 30-25 majority. He was an outspoken opponent of Liberal leader and PM Anders Fogh, and wanted the party to stay on a more liberal line with his publication of 10 liberal theses (lower taxes, competition in the public sector, lower benefits etc.). He has often blamed the rise of the Liberal Alliance on Fogh's response to him and his theses. So despite being elected MP in 2005, he didn't have much influence nationally until Lars Løkke Rasmussen became PM in 2009. He was Minister of Development Aid and then Minister of Immigration until the election defeat in 2011. He was Foreign Policy spokesperson while in opposition, and seen as a potential Foreign Minister in 2015. Instead he got another big role, as Minister of Justice; a role the self-proclaimed "Sheriff" really enjoyed. However, when the Conservatives and Liberal Alliance entered the government in 2016, he was demoted to Minister of Higher Education and Research.

In his resignation interview, Pind says that the reverberations of the 2014 leadership battle were that Kristian Jensen is locked in as the next Liberal leader, which means that Pind can't really aim higher, and that if he stayed, the future would most likely be a fifth or a sixth new Ministry, but the top role could not be reached. But while Pind has consistenly been among the most popular ministers, this has mostly been because he has not been intensely disliked among the left wing voters. He has not been the the most popular minister among Liberal voters or Blue Bloc voters in general. Despite being both Minister of Immigration and Justice, where he used some tough rhetoric and make adjustments in that direction, he has been on the internationalist/liberal side in the party on immigration debates. Also he is a quite elitist culturally, located in Copenhagen and has been loudly opposed to "populism/social media mobs etc.". He can be charismatic, funny and a creative thinker, but (at least) equally often a course, banal and almost ridiculous figure.

Esben Lunde Larsen is a theologian, son of a farmer in Western Jutland. Like Pind, he participated actively in the Liberal Youth before entering local politics. He entered Ringkøbing council in 2006 before becoming Deputy Mayor in 2010. In 2011, he was elected to Parliament and became a well-respected spokesperson on Education. Therefore, he was a logical choice as Minister of Higher Education and Research in 2015, before becoming Minister of Environment and Food in 2016. In this position, he has become the symbol of Løkke and the Liberals' concerted effort to win back voters in rural areas with a bigger focus on good conditions for farmers and fishers than on the environment. There he has become extremely unpopular in urban circles, and severely criticized in much of the media (who has been helped by constant leaks to undermine him from his pro-environmental civil servants). Out west, however, he has always been extremely popular. In 2015, he personally received 24.2% of the votes (8.622 out of 35.568) in his Ringkøbing nomination district, while DPP as the 2nd largest party in the district won 22.4%. We don't know yet why Lunde Larsen left, but there will certainly be a void to fill in Western Jutland.

It will be interesting to see how big the reshuffle will be tomorrow. I don't think the Conservatives will want to make any changes. Most of the Liberal Alliance ministers are in the bottom of the Minister rankings in terms of popularity, but a significant part of that is explained by their radical economic messages. Their ministers are mostly all the top figures in the party, so a change could be controversial. Minister for the Elderly, Thyra Frank, is perhaps the only exception, but she is Samuelsen's own invention, so perhaps he will hesitate to throw her under the bus. The arguments for changing is the classic story of fresh faces etc, but I don't think it would be wise for them to make their popular, younger MPs "tainted" by government participation as well. The Liberals could make more changes. Group leader Søren Gade is running in the 2019 European elections and political spokesperson Jacob Ellemann-Jensen is likely to become minister, so the party has the two biggest internal party roles in play as well.

[Diouf]

Limited reshuffle



PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen opted for a limited cabinet reshuffle after yesterday's two resignations. The surprise addition was Tommy Ahlers (left in picture), a business man who is primarily known from his role in TV series "Dragons' Den" where he advices and invests in new companies. Ahlers will become Minister of Higher Education and Research. Political Spokesperson' Jacob Ellemann-Jensen (in the middle), who is one of the most charismatic and popular MPs, becomes Minister of Environment and Food. Eva Kjer Hansen (right in picture) becomes Minister again, this time as Minister of Equality, Nordic Cooperation and Fisheries.

Ahlers was a member of the Conservative Youth previously, and even ran in the 1998 General Election as a no-hoper, where he received 436 personal votes. Since then, he has not been actively involved in politics, and revealed that he joined the Liberals yesterday. The most prominent part of his business career has been in mobile industry, where has has been a part of two succesful start-ups, one of which was sold to Vodafone.

Kjer Hansen was removed as Minister of Environment and Food in 2016 when the Conservatives declared that they had lost confidence in her due to alleged misinformation to parliament regarding the environmental consequences of an agriculture bill. However, she is very experienced, has been minister two times before, and it does not seem like the Conservatives mind her return. She replaces Karen Ellemann, who will instead become Group Leader (Chief Whipish) for the Liberals. Not a bad move for Ellemann to go from the smallest Minister post to an important, internal role.

[Diouf]

A very informative paper on the Social Democrats' new immigration policies from Peter Nedergaard, PolSci professor from Copenhagen University.

https://www.academia.edu/36536231/Back_to_the_roots_Why_has_the_Danish_Social_Democratic_Party_changed_course_back_to_a_more_restrictive_immigration_policy

[Ethelberth]

Limited reshuffle



PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen opted for a limited cabinet reshuffle after yesterday's two resignations. The surprise addition was Tommy Ahlers (left in picture), a business man who is primarily known from his role in TV series "Dragons' Den" where he advices and invests in new companies. Ahlers will become Minister of Higher Education and Research. Political Spokesperson' Jacob Ellemann-Jensen (in the middle), who is one of the most charismatic and popular MPs, becomes Minister of Environment and Food. Eva Kjer Hansen (right in picture) becomes Minister again, this time as Minister of Equality, Nordic Cooperation and Fisheries.

Ahlers was a member of the Conservative Youth previously, and even ran in the 1998 General Election as a no-hoper, where he received 436 personal votes. Since then, he has not been actively involved in politics, and revealed that he joined the Liberals yesterday. The most prominent part of his business career has been in mobile industry, where has has been a part of two succesful start-ups, one of which was sold to Vodafone.

Kjer Hansen was removed as Minister of Environment and Food in 2016 when the Conservatives declared that they had lost confidence in her due to alleged misinformation to parliament regarding the environmental consequences of an agriculture bill. However, she is very experienced, has been minister two times before, and it does not seem like the Conservatives mind her return. She replaces Karen Ellemann, who will instead become Group Leader (Chief Whipish) for the Liberals. Not a bad move for Ellemann to go from the smallest Minister post to an important, internal role.

So basically not two Ellemans in same government. Is this closest thing to political dynasty in Denmark these days.

[DavidB.]

A very informative paper on the Social Democrats' new immigration policies from Peter Nedergaard, PolSci professor from Copenhagen University.

https://www.academia.edu/36536231/Back_to_the_roots_Why_has_the_Danish_Social_Democratic_Party_changed_course_back_to_a_more_restrictive_immigration_policy

Thanks for this, very interesting!