Danes yesterday began voting in general elections, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen seen as the favorite after standing up to US President Donald Trump over Greenland.
The latest polls gave the left-wing bloc, for which Frederiksen is the self-proclaimed candidate, a nine-seat lead over the right-wing bloc, but neither side is projected to win a majority of the 179 seats in the Danish parliament, the Folketing.
Frederiksen, a Social Democrat who has been in office since 2019, has been praised for her leadership after fending off Trump’s repeated demands to annex Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory he claims the US for national security reasons.
Photo: AP
At Copenhagen City Hall, voters, many on their way to work, lined up under a cloudy sky to cast their ballots as polls opened at 8am.
“The alternatives [to Frederiksen] are worse,” 24-year-old student Freja Strandlod said just after casting her vote in central Copenhagen.
“People may not really like her, but they see her as the right leader,” said Elisabet Svane, political analyst at Danish newspaper Politiken.
Frederiksen, who had “a prime minister you can count on” as one of her campaign slogans “is a unifying figure in a world full of insecurity, and Danes are quite anxious — there’s Greenland, Ukraine [and mystery] drones” that flew over the Scandinavian country last year, Svane said.
In addition, “it’s hard to imagine a right-wing government, because it would have to unite such a broad swath, from the far right to the more centrist parties, which are not on very good terms with the far right,” said Ole Waever, a political science professor at the University of Copenhagen.
The four overseas seats held by Denmark’s two autonomous territories — two for Greenland and two for the Faroe Islands — could tip the balance if the election result is very close.
The centrist Moderate party, led by Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Lars Lokke Rasmussen, a two-time former prime minister, could also prove decisive if things go down to the wire.
In Greenland’s capital Nuuk, the campaign has generated more interest than usual, with more than 20 candidates standing.
“I think this election will kind of show us the direction going forward,” said Juno Berthelsen, a member of Greenland’s local parliament and leader of the Naleraq party, which wants to cut ties with Denmark as soon as possible.
Several of the party’s members have met with the Trump administration.
Greenland’s main political parties all want independence from Denmark, but Naleraq’s rivals favor a more measured process.
Greenland’s Business Minister Naaja Nathanielsen, a candidate for the left-wing IA party, said fear of the US had been central to the campaign in Greenland.
“Due to the fact that the US has shown such aggression, you would find a bigger interest in really trying to push the Greenlandic narrative in the Danish parliament,” she said.
However, in metropolitan Denmark, the row over the vast Arctic island has not been central in the campaign.
In the wealthy nation of 6 million people, the campaign has instead focused on domestic issues, including inflation, the welfare state and high nitrate levels in water from agriculture.
“During the campaign, there weren’t really any key issues for me. I focused on climate policy and looked at the different parties to find the most pragmatic solution,” said William, a 26-year-old trainee lawyer who did not want to give his last name.
In a country where the far right has heavily influenced policy since the late 1990s, immigration has also been a hot topic, with the Social Democrats advocating even tighter regulations.
Frederiksen has also defended as “fair” a proposal to deny non-essential healthcare to people of foreign origin who threaten medical personnel.
“It has to be this way: In addition to the formal punishment in the judicial system, we’re saying: ‘You have no place here,’” she said.
Three populist parties are also in the running and opinion polls see them garnering about 19 percent of the vote.
The most established of those is the far-right Danish People’s Party, which slumped in the 2022 election, but has seen an upswing in opinion polls.
In metropolitan Denmark, polling stations close at 8pm, with exit polls expected to be published just after.
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