DENMARK - 5 June 2019 election

[ingemann]

I think it's time for this topic. Elections will be held on 17 June. Looks like left wing coalition will win. Maybe forum Danes knows more.

My thoughts on the issue, and be aware that I'm a partisan hack.

I think left-wing victory is pretty much given. Lars Løkke Rasmussen, while a competent politician with very low morales, feels like he's really really tired, and he's pretty much the only one on the right fighting for a victory.

Unless he comes back into his fighting spirit, we may very see the right being left as smoking ruins, and everything indicates that Venstre will break out into a civil war the moment LLR is gone.

Of course the Left have it own conflicts, but the Social Democratic and SSP relative friendly relationship with DPP and the interest in all three parties in keeping the Social Liberals political irrelevant, will likely result in a relative stable Social Democratic one party government. 

[ingemann]

  I'm interested in the Social Democrats chances and their relations to the DPP. Do they basically agree with the DPP on the immigration issue, and would the DPP give support to a minority Social Democrat government?

The main reason for the potential cooperation is a historical good personal relationship between the leadership in the two parties. But also that DPP voters are very tired of Venstre. SD and DPP doesn’t basically agree, but SD are only slightly to the left of Venstre on immigration, and much more in line with how DPP sell themselves on economic issue. Beside that DPP have a interest in keeping the Social Liberals away from influence, and SD are incredible tired of the Social Liberals right now, think it will be healthy to sideline them right now.

[ingemann]

 I'm interested in the Social Democrats chances and their relations to the DPP. Do they basically agree with the DPP on the immigration issue, and would the DPP give support to a minority Social Democrat government?

The main reason for the potential cooperation is a historical good personal relationship between the leadership in the two parties. But also that DPP voters are very tired of Venstre. SD and DPP doesn’t basically agree, but SD are only slightly to the left of Venstre on immigration, and much more in line with how DPP sell themselves on economic issue. Beside that DPP have a interest in keeping the Social Liberals away from influence, and SD are incredible tired of the Social Liberals right now, think it will be healthy to sideline them right now.

What would you say was behind this antipathy between SD and Radikale Venstre?

The latter are a bunch of smug moralizing selfserving a-holes. Of course they have always been that way, but under the last government the took it a step too far.

[ingemann]

1) I'm guessing there is no real desire for the SPP to rejoin a coalition with S then after the last time round?

2) is Alternative going to be a guaranteed prop for the left, or will they demand something wacky? same for Ø.

3) I know D's current leader has doubled down on populism in regards to immigration/cultural issues, but where does she stand economically in the party?

1) Any reasonable person would believe so, but no they’re hungry for a new round in government. Which show us a important fact about SPP that they prefer power to popularity, which have always been a plus in my book.

2) Alternative will do something wacky, if LLR becomes PM again, it will be because of them.

3) I dislike callling SDs view on immigration for populist, because Alternative and the Social Liberals pro-immigration policy are every bit as much populism as DPP, it’s just populism for a different voter segment. I would say that SD, SPP, Venstre, Conservative and to lesser extent Unity List have immigration policies which are ideological coherent or pragmatic in nature. While the other parties either lack one (LA) or have a immigration policy building on emotions.

As for Mette Frederiksen, she’s to the left economical in SD. But that’s not completely meaningful, as it’s not a major internal battlefield in SD. In fact what make her unique in the party is the fact, that while she forced a consensus on the party, she have done so in dialogue with the MPs, so there’s relative little dissent among the MPs and pretty much next to none on economics.

[ingemann]

What would be the type of voter moving from DPP to SD?

From what I have heard and read, right now it’s mostly women with a short or no education.

[ingemann]

First signs for Christian Democrats in Ringkøbing show the Kristian Andersen effect. With 7.70% counted, the party increases by 7.9% from 5.4% to 13.3% in the counted areas.

What is the profile of the average Christian Democrat voters in Denmark?

Member of Inner Mission (crypto-Calvinist Lutheran group), who is too left wing or anti-abortion to vote for the Liberals, Conservative or Danish People Party.

[ingemann]

Pardon me for asking a stupid question but what exactly is the difference between the Alternative List, the Unity List, the Socialist Peoples party - they all seem to be far left parties - why are they three parties and not one?

Unity List: Old Commies, anarchists and other riff raff from the 70ties.

SPP: Unified democratic Socialist Party, the party for social democrats who think the Social Democrats are too pragmatic and rough, but also still want influence.

Alternative: The party for members of the creative class who don't care about economy.

[ingemann]

What happened with Johannne Schmidt-Niellsen? She wasnt on the list?

No, as mentioned earlier in the thread, she is the new leader of Save the Children in Denmark. Red-Green Alliance has a rotation principle, so you can't be a parliamentary candidate after having been in parliament for seven years straight. They also have some rules for parliamentary employees and board members.

This rotation principle also means that the current leader, Pernille Skipper, can't run next election. The red-green alliance are really making things difficult for themselves with this principle. This election also saw the loss of by far their strongest MP on financial matters (something often neglected by the left wing), Palle Dragsted. So far the party has been quite succesful in constantly finding new talented people to put in front, but I wonder how long that will last. I'm not sure when they will make the next leadership change, but seeing that Skipper can't run next time, surely they will have to do so quite soon.

I usual don't defend the Unity List, but I think the concept make a lot of sense for them. Unity List doesn't have the same need for institutional knowledge as parties closer to the center of power, so not a lot is lost on that issue. Also the rotation princip force the Unity List to work on their talent mass, if it hadn't been for that princip we wouldn't have seen Rosenkrantz-Theil, Schmidt-Nielsen and Skipper (of course we would also have avoided Asmaa), instead we would have seen the party's parlimental group being dominated by fossils from the seventies. It's quite likely that Unity List would have disappeared if not for that princip.