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Diouf
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« Reply #25 on: September 03, 2019, 05:24:21 AM »

Agreement on temporary benefit increase for families & Ellemann-Jensen set for coronation



The government, Social Liberals, SPP and Red-Green Alliance has agreed on a temporary benefit increase for families with children from 0-14 years of age. The three support parties all want a complete removal of the benefit cap and the lower "integration benefit" for immigrants, but Social Democrats are wary. An expert group has been set down to look at possible options, which will be ready in the summer 2020. Until then, the parties have agreed to make a temporary increase of the benefits for families with children aged 0-14, who are currently hit by the benefit cap or receives the integration benefit. There are some different levels, but in general the increase will be 600 DKK (80 euro) per child per month. Single parents will receive an extra 650 DKK a month. This is expected to increase benefits for 14 300 families with 27 900 children.

In the Liberals, no one has yet announced their candidacy as leader or deputy leader, but it looks like Jakob Ellemann-Jensen will be coronated as the new Liberal leader. MPs and mayors from all sides of the party has announced their support for him. A few local voices have said that it might be good with an leadership election to get a better view of the leadership candidates' priorities, but it looks unlikely that any serious candidate will run. Many have proposed that the party ditches the idea of an heir apparent as deputy leader after the problems it created with Kristian Jensen in that post. Instead, a solution like the Social Democratic one is proposed, where there are two deputy leaders, one from parliament and one from local/regional politics. However, it is not clear whether that will be decided already at the extraordinary party congress. The race for the other top posts in the party is less settled, but a solution with Inger Støjberg as deputy leader, Sophie Løhde as political spokesperson and Karsten Lauritzen as parliamentary group leader sounds like the most likely at the moment. Kristian Jensen is seen as having a future in the party, probably as a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, EU or UN World Goals, while Lars Løkke and Claus Hjort will probably not play a significant role in the party anymore. I don't think Løkke will pull a SDG and start a new party, even though his exit as leader was almost as bitter and angry.
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Diouf
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« Reply #26 on: September 03, 2019, 02:50:50 PM »

Jakob Ellemann-Jensen has officially announced his candidacy as Liberal leader. In his interviews, he rejects the idea of a SV-government, "Mette Frederiksen has decided to base her government on the far left, so that isn't even an viable option. Liberals belong in the Blue family. Of course we can cooperate with Social Democrats and Social Liberals in some areas, but cooperation in some areas is different from government cooperation." In terms of the New Right, he says that he won't rule out cooperation with any of the Blue parties, but will not accept ultimatums. He intends to unite the Blue parties. He says Inger Støjberg will be a strong candidate for deputy leader.

I don't think Løkke will pull a SDG and start a new party, even though his exit as leader was almost as bitter and angry.

Thomas Funding, political editor of Avisen Danmark, writes that Løkke has actually aired this idea in meetings with some Liberals during the past weeks in phrases a la "I'm not gonna start a new party, but this treatment could almost make me consider it etc". He writes that most Liberals considered it a veiled, but emtpy threat. Also most of Løkke's loyal supporters have come out in support of Ellemann as new leader. Løkke himself has not faced any media after his resignation, and some doubt whether he will even turn up for the extraordinary party congress.
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Diouf
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« Reply #27 on: September 04, 2019, 05:59:09 AM »

Inger Støjberg officially candidate for Deputy Leader. She has public support from most of the immigration hardliners and those loyal to Løkke, but I haven't seen any announcements yet from those in the Jensen-wing. Ellen Trane Nørby seems the most likely potential candidate, especially since she is maybe the biggest name without a spot in the front row if Løhde and Lauritzen gets the other top spots as is rumoured. Can a deal be made with Nørby behind the scenes or will we get an open battle for deputy leader?
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Diouf
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« Reply #28 on: September 05, 2019, 04:07:01 AM »

A bit more Løkke speculation. Tabloid Ekstra Bladet has Løkke on the front page with "threatens to start new party" with claims that a sponsor has lined up 4 million DKK to help him start up if he wishes. Additionally, the domain name for Liberalt Centrum (Liberal Centre) has been reserved yesterday.


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crals
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« Reply #29 on: September 05, 2019, 05:48:10 AM »

Does Løkke have enough loyal voters to make this work?

I doubt Denmark needs another party with Liberal in the name
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Diouf
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« Reply #30 on: September 05, 2019, 09:07:37 AM »

Does Løkke have enough loyal voters to make this work?

I doubt Denmark needs another party with Liberal in the name

I still doubt he will do it, and we don't know much about what the party would entail. One would imagine something similar to the Liberals, but with a focus on cross-bloc government formation and cooperation, keeping out extreme parties from influence, and perhaps an added emphasis on EU-cooperation and green issues. Many, including Løkke, believe that a significant part of their progress in the election campaign was due to the message about an SV-government and keeping out the extremes. But that was in a campaign with a rabid Rasmus Paludan on the right wing, who many rightwing voters found repulsive. So does that message work in a less toxic environment and as leader of a small party instead of a big one? I'm not so sure. Similarly the 40.000 personal votes was as Liberal leader vying to be PM, not leader of a start up with an establishment message. But as always in Denmark, 2% isn't that much.
I think mostly Løkke is just very grumpy. I'm not sure he is really interested in the organizational aspect of starting a new party, but obviously enjoys the parliamentary games and the specific policy debates. And again, most if not all of his loyal supporters seem to be moving on, and have supported Ellemann and Støjberg as the new leadership.
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Diouf
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« Reply #31 on: September 09, 2019, 03:33:23 PM »

Ellen Trane Nørby is running against Inger Støjberg to be Liberal deputy leader. Nørby was recently Minister of Health, and before that Minister of Children and Education. She has been a prominent member of the European Movement, which I guess might be a slight disadvantage now that its current leader is a left-liberal lunatic (#FBPE X10). Although the party members are likely more pro-EU than voters. She was supposed to be EU Parliament lead candidate in 2014 before she became pregnant. She won 13.477 personal votes in Southern Jutland in 2019, the most of any Liberal candidate. A fair bit below Støjberg's 28.420 votes in Western Jutland, but Southern Jutland arguably has more, stronger Liberal candidates with a strong local backing. The party members are probably less Støjberg-leaning than the Liberal voters, so Trane Nørby should certainly have a chance. But many MPs have signalled support for Støjberg, and there was many stories of dissatisfied Liberal voters when Støjberg was overlooked for a leadership spot in the parliamentary group a few weeks ago, so there will be some pressure to give her an important position and not seen as "unwanted" by the party despite a big popularity among voters.
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Diouf
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« Reply #32 on: September 15, 2019, 02:16:16 PM »
« Edited: September 15, 2019, 02:23:09 PM by Diouf »

Lars Løkke finally speaks after his departure through the back door two weeks ago.

More than 800 persons have written him and encouraged him to start a new party. However, he says that he has full faith in Ellemann-Jensen keeping the party on the "right track" with faith in international cooperation, working for cooperation across the centre etc. So it sounds slightly like he's making a slight threat "but if you veer of that track, I might do it". The question is whether anyone believes it. He repeated some of the criticisms of the other Blue Bloc parties, which made governing very difficult. LA made ultimatums, and DPP only wanted to block things, not take influence. He even fired again at Thulelsen Dahl by saing his speech yesterday at the DPP congress was incoherent, as Thulelsen Dahl both said that it was a mistake not to enter government in 2015, but then also said that the party should have taken down Løkke instead of letting him sign the Marrakech pact. He said this shows that they now want to pretend to be serious about governing, but still won't make the decisions necessary to govern.

He said that he don't intend to to turn up at the extraordinary party congress in a week, but he will turn up at the ordinary party congress in a few months. He will not comment on who should be deputy speaker.

He said there were two reasons why he didn't resign on election night. Firstly, he believed that Mette Frederiksen would get huge problems in governing with Social Liberals and Red-Green Alliance, so he was ready to enter into the SV-government or even take over the reins if Frederiksen's government collapsed or couldn't be formed. The second reasons was that his preferred successor was Ellemann-Jensen, and it wasn't certain that he would replace him if he had withdrawn immediately.

He said that he is still a "political animal", but that all politics does not take place in parliament. He did not say no when asked about looking for a possible position in the private sector or NGO, but so far he remains a MP. He will now tour around the country with the author, who wrote the interview book which was published during the election campaign.

Løkke also talked about the 2014 leadership crisis. He said he made no promises about influence to Kristian Jensen. He said it became clear at the meeting that Jensen had no majority to take down Løkke, so Jensen and Løkke agreed to not take the vote which would show the divisions in the party. But he did not promise influence for Jensen. This is of course contrary to what Jensen has said was agreed between the two.
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Diouf
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« Reply #33 on: September 21, 2019, 12:35:51 PM »

New Liberal leadership elected



Today in Herning, the Liberals elected their new leadership in an extraordinary congress. Jakob Ellemann-Jensen was elected as leader as the sole candidate, 21 years after his dad Uffe resigned from the same position after the extremely narrow 1998 election loss. There were two candidates for deputy leader, Ellen Trane Nørby and Inger Støjberg, and the latter won a suprisingly big victory. 577 delegates voted for Støjberg, while 206 voted for Nørby. A resounding victory for the former Minister of Immigration. The party will hope for a calmer period after months of infighting, and if they successfully manage to reshuffle the parliamentary group positions in the coming days, there should be a decent chance of this happening. And with two relatively popular persons in charge, who were in the top of the Minister rankings, a bounce for the party could easily happen.
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Diouf
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« Reply #34 on: September 24, 2019, 08:23:33 AM »

As expected, Sophie Løhde and Karsten Lauritzen join Ellemann-Jensen and Støjberg in the parliamentary group leadership. Løhde will be political spokesperson, while Lauritzen will be parliamentary group deputy leader (Ellemann himself has chosen to become parliamentary group leader, although in practice I guess Lauritzen will do many of the tasks).



In other news, Henrik Sass Larsen, who long looked like the next Finance Minister, is resigning as MP to become CEO of the Association of Venture and Capital Funds. Quite a move for a Social Democrat, who has been very critical of corporate greed and the immoral behaviour of banks and similar financial institutions.

DPP is still confused after their election defeat. In relation to the Social Democratic wish for a differentiated pension age, I think their strategy is completely bonkers. They are attacking the Social Democrats for broken promises, making a counter of time elapsed since the proposal etc, but the Social Democrats are actually working on it and will surely make a real proposal. And then DPP might have talked themselves into a corner, so they almost have to agree to it without many demands. Instead, it would have been an obvious strategy to talk about the idea in broadly positive tones, but say that in order to fund such a model, surely savings on immigration is needed so we need more tighetnings there to vote for it. On climate change, the party has now publicly pondered to support the government's goal of 70% reduction in 2030 compared to 1990, which seems weird and a complete change of attitude compared to the election. And these measures could become unpopular once they are concrete.
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Diouf
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« Reply #35 on: October 01, 2019, 11:36:34 AM »

Today, we had the official start of the parliamentary season with Mette Frederiksen's opening speech. It was a quite gloomy speech which focused on the erosion of trust and lack of confidence in the future among the population in several areas. She mentioned immigration as the issue on which there had been the biggest trust crisis, and vowed to continue a tough immigration policy with new tough laws on gang crime, Syria fighters and hazardous driving as well as reiterating her ambition to create a new asylum system without the possibility for seeking asylum on a European basis. She also talked about a lack of trust in police action against crimes, and wanted to continue the strengthening of the police. Additionally, she talked about lack of trust in the welfare state with increasing retirement age and a lower quality of welfare services, which she wants to reverse by introducing a differentiated pension age and hiring more nurses. She also mentioned the government's large ambitions on climate policy and a wish to de-centralize power and remove bureaucracy. The socialiberal daily Politiken's commentator called it "the least hopeful speech since Donald Trump's inauguration speech", Avisen Danmark, which produces the pages with national news in many regional newspapers, said that "she tried to put the platform on fire by talking up the country's problems, so her solutions will seem more pressing and necessary", while centre-right daily Jyllands-Posten praised her for her lines on immigration and decentralization and for acknowledging her party's previous wrongs on those issues, but bemoaned the lack of concrete plans and her lack of  foreign policy focus.

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Diouf
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« Reply #36 on: October 20, 2019, 03:03:41 PM »

Socialliberal wing of Liberal Alliance starts deserting



Former MP and political spokesperson Christina Egelund has left the Liberal Alliance because she thinks the party has become too nationalconservative. She argues that the party isn't standing up for international cooperation, that she has disagreements with the party on European policy and immigration, and that the party should defend liberal values like the rule of law (pointing to particularly to the debate about Syrian fighters with Danish passports). Egelund is closely associated with current MP Simon Emil Ammitzbøll-Bille, who was deputy leader under the previous regime and Minister of Economy and the Interior. Former MP and Minister of Culture Mette Bock has also backed Egelund's messages today. Former leader Anders Samuelsen will probably have a hard time leaving the party he founded, and I'm less sure that he is so far towards the socialliberal wing. So it will be interesting to see how many of the party's prominent names will leave the party, and of course in particular whether Ammitzbøll-Bille will leave the party. A MP leaving will not necessarily mean much politically due to the party's lack of influence during this term, but it will cost them quite a lot economically as parliamentary groups below 4 MPs gets significantly lower funding. An MP deserting would also send an even stronger message of division. Egelund says she is not joining another party, but it will be interesting to see whether some of them end up in the Social Liberals or other parties.

Liberal Alliance leader Alex Vanopslagh has rejected Egelund's criticism. He says the party under his leadership has acknowledged that it made some mistakes in terms of going along with symbolic immigration policies like the remote island, the burqa ban and the mandatory handshake at citizenship ceremonies. However, he insisted that it wasn't liberal to have a costly mass-migration from Northern Africa and the Middle East with people, who believe less in liberal values. So Denmark should stop the ability to apply for spontaneous asylum in Denmark, and be able to throw out criminal immigrants. In terms of justice policies, he said the party has kept a liberal line and opposed the government's proposal to increase camera surveillance and that while it supported taking away passports from Syrian fighters, it wanted more judicial checks of the proposed proces. Finally, he argued that the party's EU policies were balanced and liberal with support of freedom, free trade and the free movement of people, but opposed bureaucracy and federalizing ideas which undermined freedom. And even acknowledged that the party might change its stance on Denmark changing its position on EU justice policies from a total opt-out to an opt-in (which LA opposed before the 2015 referendum, that ended with a no).
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Diouf
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« Reply #37 on: October 22, 2019, 11:42:15 AM »

Ammitzbøll-Bille leaves Liberal Alliance



MP Simon Emil Ammitzbøll-Bille has left the Liberal Alliance, reducing the party's parliamentary group to three. In a Facebook post, he writes that he is leaving because the disagreements in the party are too big, and he didn't agree with the party line. He says his ambition was for the party to be "a modern, positive, liberal party, which fights for personal freedom with a big appreciation of international cooperation, an immigration policy based on fairness and justice and a serious approach to tackling climate change. We should be Jakob Ellemanns's best friend, whenever he disagrees with Inger Støjberg"

A majority in the party's executive committee had sent an internal letter to the party leadership complaining about Ammitzbøll-Bille's lack of work for the party since the election and his divisive and uncoordinated statements about the party's policies in the media. They suggested that if he didn't start to act in a more constructive manner, he should leave the party.

Ammitzbøll-Bille, a bachelor in social science, became a MP for the Social Liberals in 2005. In 2008, he left the party due to its entrenchment in the Red Bloc and lack of cooperation with the centre-right parties in addition to some personal disputes. At first, he founded his own party, Borgerligt Centrum (Civic Centre), but in 2009 he joined Anders Samuelsen in Liberal Alliance, which looked like a dead project after the collapse of its predecessor New Alliance. But Samuelsen and Ammitzbøll managed to increase the party's fortunes, and get the party into parliament in 2011. In the recent term, Ammitzbøll-Bille was Liberal Alliance's main coordinator in government as Minister of Economy and Interior with Samuelsen frequently out of the country as Foreign Minister.
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Diouf
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« Reply #38 on: November 07, 2019, 05:06:34 AM »

New Party Like It's 2007



Today, MP Simon Emil Ammitzbøll-Bille and his former Liberal Alliance colleague, Christina Egelund, founded the new party Fremad (Forward). Ammitzbøll-Bille says that Denmark needs a centrist party with liberal values, which insist on due process and fairness in immigration policies and a stronger European engagement. In terms of immigration, this means opposition to the recent law which allows the Minister of Integration to remove the Danish citizenship from Syrian fighters with double citizenship as well as to the burqa ban and the mandatory handshake at citizenship ceremonies. In terms of the EU, the party wants to remove the Danish opt-outs, except the Euro opt-out.

Their message largely seems like a echo of the 2007 foundation of New Alliance, with opposition to the nationalconservative parts of the Blue Bloc. However, unless the party manages to attract some big names, they will likely have a hard time making as big a splash as the New Alliance. Also Ammitzbøll-Bille's reputation might be quite tarnished by his frequent party changes. While the party's values are undoubtedly reflecting a significant portion of the elite, and therefore might get additional air time, the question is how many voters are on the look for what is basically a copy of the Social Liberals who just wants a Liberal PM instead. At the last election, Klaus Riskær Pedersen, in an idiosyncratic way, tried to make this pitch and got 0.8%. The Christian Democrats, who won 1.7% and were 200 votes away from a constituency seat and thereby entering parliament, also positioned themselves in the Blue Bloc with soft immigration policies.

For the Blue Bloc overall, another new party is probably not what many hoped for after a recent election with five minor centre-right to right wing parties around the threshold, and three failing to get into parliament. Also Forward broadens the span of policy that a Blue Bloc would cover on immigration policy, although with a cooperative Social Democrats the problem might not be that big. Also, we still need to see how many of the minor Blue parties will actually be running at the next election (and whether any new Red parties will emerge). Tough Line and Klaus Riskær Pedersen are both currently eligible to run, since the parties achieved eligibility less than 18 months ago. Klaus Riskær Pedersen has been very critical of the new Social Democrat government, and has therefore changed his mind and wants to run again. However, both parties could have significant difficulties in getting the necessary 20.109 signatures with double approval. The Ministry of Interior has closed the loophole the two parties used last time to get the signatures really fast without double approval, and both parties seem to have little organization and might be considered tiny fads. Tough Line probably has the best shot as immigration is always a hot topic, and there might be events which put Rasmus Paludan in the limeline again. The Christian Democrats are very well-organized and looks very likely to regain their eligibility. They have already collected 3 531 signatures in very short time and must have an easier path after being so close to getting into parliament. We will then see whether Forward is able to build an organization and collect signatures. A new party called Grøn Kurs (Green Course) which wants to build a Greenliberal party has received a little attention, but the founding IT entrepreneur is completely unknown and the party has only collected 287 signatures so far. Perhaps a fusion with Forward could be an option.

On the Red side, there seems to be less new party energy currently. However, Veganerpartiet (the Vegan Party) has actually collected 7 568 signatures, although I belive most of them were before the loophole closed and in a pre-election frenzy. But it would certainly be further bad news for the Alternative if they managed to get on the ballot. There is also Fiskerlussing (A Fisherman's slap on the cheek), founded by a humanist Fisherman from Western Jutland who once had a viral Facebook video by attacking DPP and anti-immigration parties but in a funny Western Jutland dialect, with 1 501 signatures and Feministisk Initiativ with 809 signatures, but neither seem to be realistically getting on the ballot. Finally, there is a pensioner's party Borgernes Folkeparty (The Citizens' Party) which is at 2 206 signatures, and looks unlikely to make it as well.
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Diouf
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« Reply #39 on: November 29, 2019, 09:21:07 AM »

Liberal immigration hardliner moves to the Conservatives



Today MP Marcus Knuth announced that he is leaving the Liberals and joining the Conservatives. He says that his top priority is saving Danish culture and values:"If we do not manage to stand our ground, we will end up like Sweden. We must insist that Denmark is based on free, Christian values". He says that in the Conservatives those values are uniting the party, not dividing it. He also talks about the necessity of better conditions for business and agriculture, and states that the inheritance tax on businesses should be removed. An issue which is critical for Conservatives and gets a fair amount of attention right now as the government hopes to re-raise the inheritance tax on businesses from 5 to 15%.

For me, this was a quite unexpected move. Knuth has been a loyal supporter of Inger Støjberg, and she is after all deputy leader of the party now. But Knuth himself only became Spokesperson for Greenland. So I would think personal ambitions have a fair bit to do with this. Because the immigration argument is not totally clear cut. When I listen to some of the newly elected MPs in the Conservatives, mostly middle-aged business woman, they to me sound like the same minority of softliners on immigration which are present in the Liberals. The Conservatives are somewhat to the right of the Liberals on immigration, recently they joined with New Right and DPP in urging the government to do anything within the Constitution, i.e. disregarding international conventions, to avoid foreign fighters returning. However, I'm not sure whether there is much evidence yet that that has changed much during the last years or months. But definitively a poor sign for Jakob Ellemann-Jensen that a fairly well-known figure like Knuth is leaving the party, and blaming the migration question. It doesn't exactly show him as successful in uniting the party. In 2019, Knuth won 9 523 personal votes in the Zealand multi-member constituency, the second best among the Liberal candidates in that constituency.

Knuth, who became a MP in 2015, is also a councillor in Copenhagen. He is the youngest son of the count of Knuthenborg in Lolland, where the noble family has established a popular safari park close to the castle. Knuth has been a captain in the army and served in Afghanistan, he has worked as a Associate at Lehman Brothers and as in the Danish Foreign Ministry as an advisor on Afghanistan, Syria and as embassy coordinator for EU embassies in the areas.
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Diouf
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« Reply #40 on: December 02, 2019, 03:55:10 PM »



Five and a half months after the general election, one of the pollsters finally managed to make a poll, which actually included the parties, which are currently eligible to run. Voxmeter is not the best pollster, 4th out of the 5 with an election day poll published, but at least it is a poll. Voxmeter makes weekly polls, whereas the other pollsters have had max a poll a month since the election, and most fewer than that. Others is at 1,9% which explains a significant part of why, the centre-right to right wing parties are down 3,0%. The Christian Democrats are currently not eligible to run, so their voters will make up a lot of the others portion. The poll does not show a lot of change; mostly the centre-left to left-wing parties + DPP are a bit higher than their election results, but this was more or less where Voxmeter had their errors before the election.

In terms of eligible parties, the status is published in the beginning of each month, so we can compare today's figures to last month's for the interesting parties. 20 109 signatures with double approval are needed by the parties, and a signature is valid for 18 months.
Veganerpartiet (Vegan Party) is at 8 962 (+ 1 394)
Kristendemokraterne (Christian Democrats) is at 6 789 (+ 3 258)
Fremad (Forward) is at 1 593 (new)

The Christian Democrat party machine is collecting signatures at a high level, enthused about how close they were to beating the threshold. As expected, it seems very likely that they will be eligible again for the next election. The Vegan Party made a quite nice increase with a pace that would be enough to become eligible if maintained. They seem to have been fairly active with demonstrations and meetings at universities, and if they are clever they can probably get some headlines for some stunts/protests in this meat-heavy Christmas time. I'm still not sure they will be able to make it, but it actually looks like they will have a fair shot. The new party Forward is at 1 593 signatures after receiving quite a bit of attention in their first week. Maybe they should have been able to gain a bit more signatures with all that early attention, but on the other hand, they also have a lot to do organizationally at the moment. None of the other mini-parties look like they are close to eligibility right now. Klaus Riskær Pedersen and Tough Line's eligibility runs out in the summer and fall of 2020 respectively, and then afterwards we will see whether they can collect the necessary signatures again, without cheating the state IT system this time.
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Diouf
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« Reply #41 on: December 03, 2019, 10:58:20 AM »

Agreement on 2020 Budget: Higher taxes fund increased welfare spending and climate change initiatives



The government, the Social Liberals, SPP, the Red-Green Alliance and the Alternative agreed on the 2020 budget last night. One of the big headlines in the deal is SPP's achievement of increased funding for child care staffing with the aim of achieving the so-called "minimum staffing quota" of one adult per three kids in nurseries and one adult per six kids in day care in 2025. There is also increased funding for psychiatry, schools, nurses and elderly care, while there will be a repeal of the 2016 "double education law", which restricts persons from entering full-time, state-funded higher education if those persons have already completed a state-funded higher education on a similar or higher level. In relation to climate change, the parties are simultaneously negotiating a new climate law. In order to meet the high 2030 targets, the parties have created a climate fund with risk coverage of 0,25 billion DKK a year to ensure green investments of 25 billion DKK a year. The Social Liberals ensured some wins on foreign workers by adding additional lower-educated jobs to the "positive list" that allows companies to bring in non-EU workers, removing the fees for Danish education for foreign workers, and by starting a campaign to attract EU-workers in Britain. Additionally, Denmark will take up to 500 UN quota refugees next year and the planned cuts in cultural institutions will be stopped.

These plans are funded by existing funds and by: An increase in the inheritance tax for businesses from 5 to 15%, a significant cut in the state's use of private consultants, more expensive deed registrations, higher duties on cigarettes, plastic bags and PVC, higher taxes on company-paid cellphones and online casinos, a repeal of the "parent tax break" when buying property for their children and a repeal of the tax benefits for stable investors who have owned a large part of shares in the same company for 25 years+.
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Jens
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« Reply #42 on: December 06, 2019, 04:42:54 PM »

Parliament just agreed on a binding climate law, almost all parties is part of the agreement,except Liberal Alliance and Nye Borgerlige
The parties commits to a 70 % reduction of emissions in 2030, in Denmark, no buying quotas and yearly evaluations. Looks decent and a really good thing that almost all parties is committed
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Diouf
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« Reply #43 on: December 07, 2019, 04:34:40 AM »

Parliament just agreed on a binding climate law, almost all parties is part of the agreement,except Liberal Alliance and Nye Borgerlige
The parties commits to a 70 % reduction of emissions in 2030, in Denmark, no buying quotas and yearly evaluations. Looks decent and a really good thing that almost all parties is committed



DPP had been making noises that the would back the deal, so not that surprising now that they are a part of the majority. But I still see it as a quite weird move for the party. It makes them look quite untrustworthy, so shortly after an election where they denounced those voters choosing the centre-left parties as "climate fools". Also, there will still surely be a significant part of the voters opposed to some of the measures, that will follow from this law. But I guess they are very eager to join such a broad agreement and look like a palatable government-ready party, and then perhaps the can renege from supporting the unpopular, concrete measures later.
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Jens
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« Reply #44 on: December 07, 2019, 07:32:04 AM »

Parliament just agreed on a binding climate law, almost all parties is part of the agreement,except Liberal Alliance and Nye Borgerlige
The parties commits to a 70 % reduction of emissions in 2030, in Denmark, no buying quotas and yearly evaluations. Looks decent and a really good thing that almost all parties is committed



DPP had been making noises that the would back the deal, so not that surprising now that they are a part of the majority. But I still see it as a quite weird move for the party. It makes them look quite untrustworthy, so shortly after an election where they denounced those voters choosing the centre-left parties as "climate fools". Also, there will still surely be a significant part of the voters opposed to some of the measures, that will follow from this law. But I guess they are very eager to join such a broad agreement and look like a palatable government-ready party, and then perhaps the can renege from supporting the unpopular, concrete measures later.
It surpriced me too - but they do have a fraction that is very focused on animal welfare and nature preservation, so some aspects of the climate law makes sense to the. But yes, let’s see how they react, when it comes to implementing the law.
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Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan
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« Reply #45 on: December 10, 2019, 11:59:25 AM »

What are actual differences between Ø and SF other than genesis/institutional roots of both parties?
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« Reply #46 on: December 10, 2019, 02:37:51 PM »

What are actual differences between Ø and SF other than genesis/institutional roots of both parties?

SF is very pro-European, particularly as expressed by their MEP Margrethe Auken, and accepts NATO membership, while Ø is against both of these. And then in general, Ø is still more about revolutionary visions with SF as more reformist steps towards increasing the welfare state; it is after all only a few years since SF was in government. But in practice, they will of course largely draw the government in the same direction.  In terms of organization, Ø maintains a special style without an official party leader, a powerful executive committee, and closed party lists for the general elections, which are decided on at the party congress. SF is more like a normal party with a party leader, which largely decides the line, and open lists for the general elections.
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« Reply #47 on: December 10, 2019, 06:02:01 PM »

What are actual differences between Ø and SF other than genesis/institutional roots of both parties?

SF is very pro-European, particularly as expressed by their MEP Margrethe Auken, and accepts NATO membership, while Ø is against both of these. And then in general, Ø is still more about revolutionary visions with SF as more reformist steps towards increasing the welfare state; it is after all only a few years since SF was in government. But in practice, they will of course largely draw the government in the same direction.  In terms of organization, Ø maintains a special style without an official party leader, a powerful executive committee, and closed party lists for the general elections, which are decided on at the party congress. SF is more like a normal party with a party leader, which largely decides the line, and open lists for the general elections.


And what about the economic issues?
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Diouf
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« Reply #48 on: December 11, 2019, 04:08:43 AM »

What are actual differences between Ø and SF other than genesis/institutional roots of both parties?

SF is very pro-European, particularly as expressed by their MEP Margrethe Auken, and accepts NATO membership, while Ø is against both of these. And then in general, Ø is still more about revolutionary visions with SF as more reformist steps towards increasing the welfare state; it is after all only a few years since SF was in government. But in practice, they will of course largely draw the government in the same direction.  In terms of organization, Ø maintains a special style without an official party leader, a powerful executive committee, and closed party lists for the general elections, which are decided on at the party congress. SF is more like a normal party with a party leader, which largely decides the line, and open lists for the general elections.
And what about the economic issues?

Red-Green's political vision is more radical with nationalisations, workers' influence on boards etc. But again, in practice I think it would be rare with an economic negotiation, where the two parties would not largely draw in the same direction.
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Diouf
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« Reply #49 on: December 16, 2019, 08:31:51 AM »

Alternative leader Uffe Elbæk resigns - can a new leader save the party?



The Alternative leader Uffe Elbæk today announced that he is resigning as leader of the party. Elbæk founded the party in 2013, and it has largely been an one man army in public since. Despite an increasing focus on green issues among the voters and the media, the party's fortunes have declined to the extent that they are now close the to the electoral threshold. A new leader will be elected at an extraordinary party congress on 1 February, and will have the difficult job of securing the party's survival. Elbæk will remain a MP.

Elbæk founded the Alternative after he had left the Social Liberals in 2013. He was Minister of Culture 2011-2012, but resigned after the Ministry held several expensive arrangements at an organization, where he had been actively involved before and where his husband was working. Against the odds, he managed to build a successful party, which entered parliament with 4.8% and 9 seats in 2015. However, during the recent term things soured in the party with increasing internal divisions, a over-sexualized internal culture with cases of sexual harassment and a poor way of handling the party's influential position in the Copenhagen City Council after the 2017 local elections. In an attempt to get some new wind for the party, they launched the idea of Elbæk as the next PM, and wanted to be shown as a party in their own Green bloc. However, it seemed to deepen the crisis as nobody really believed the idea, and some left-wingers might fear that he wasn't a safe vote for a centre-left PM. The party declined to 3.0% and 5 seats in the 2019 election, wasn't a part of the negotiations about a new government and in the most recent polling average the Alternative is down to 2.3%, just above the threshold.

The heir apparent is political spokesperson Rasmus Nordqvist. The fashion designer was among the party's first batch of MPs in 2015, and quickly came to play an influential role in the party as political spokesperson. He was a part of the internal battle, and had to resign that position in an internal compromise at one point during the recent term. However, in 2018 he returned to the post. In 2019, he was the party's lead candidate in the EP elections 2019 and did quite well as he led the party to 3.4% in its first EP election, which was not enough to win a seat. A few days after, he was re-elected as a MP with 1 499 personal votes in the Zealand multi-member constituency. Nordqvist has already received the support of fellow MP, Sikandar Siddique.
Niko Grünfeld for long looked like another potential heir to the throne. He helped found the party, and had worked with Elbæk previously in some cultural projects. Grünfeld failed to get elected as a MP in 2015, but was the party's lead candidate in 2017 for the Copenhagen City Council. The party won 10.5% with 4 005 personal votes for Grünfeld, who was immediately in a position of significant power as the party had the 4th pick among the mayors in Copenhagen. Grünfeld and the party chose the post as Mayor for Culture and Leisure, which caused quite a backlash as the position is largely seen as a lightweight position compared to particularly Employment and Integration, which instead was chosen by Liberals in 5th position. And things became worse shortly into his term, when he received a lot of criticism over purchases of expensive (and avantgarde) furniture to his mayor's office and revelations about untruths in his CV. This caused him to resign in 2018, and probably takes him out of the running.
Other potential candidates could be Grünfeld's replacement as Mayor of Culture in Copenhagen, Franciska Rosenkilde, or the mayor of Fanø, Sofie Valbjørn. Some former MPs has left the party, partly due to criticism of Elbæk's leadership, but there might be a candidate or two there. None of the two other current MPs really look like leadership contenders. Perhaps councillors or regular party members will run as well. The party has (had) a lot of support in the urban cultural elite, so perhaps some semi-famous personality from that circle could be a contender.
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