Denmark’s Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is set to begin talks on forming a new government after a last-minute comeback secured her a majority in a nail-biter general election.
The 44-year-old premier handed in her resignation to the Queen on Wednesday, setting in motion a process where she seeks to forge a broad coalition to rule Denmark, she told reporters gathered in Copenhagen on Wednesday.
Ms. Frederiksen and her allies in the left-leaning bloc ended up winning 90 seats as all votes had been tallied, including from Denmark’s North Atlantic territories, while early polling had indicated she would fall well short. That compares with 73 mandates for the right-wing opposition bloc and 16 for a newly emerged center party the Moderates, which had been widely expected to become a kingmaker following the vote.
Given the consensus-driven nature of Danish politics and the krone’s peg to the euro, the election result did not move the markets.
Ms. Frederiksen, who’s led the party since 2015, is the youngest premier in Danish history and was seen as having handled the pandemic more skillfully than many developed nations until that perception was marred by a mink scandal that ended up weighing on her government for the past two years. Two months after taking over the government in June 2019, she drew then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s ire by saying Greenland wasn’t for sale after he’d offered to buy it.
Ms. Frederiksen vowed to push for broad government. The election result now sets off talks among parties on who can secure the needed backing in parliament, with the leader of those negotiations carrying the moniker royal investigator.
“We went into the campaign on a pledge to form a broad coalition,” Ms. Frederiksen told reporters. “It seems that Danes have backed that and I hope that we can do that.”
“If a majority of parties choose me as the royal investigator, I will explore that opportunity because that would be good for Denmark,” she said after the election result became clear.
When they reach a deal, it’s presented to the queen and marks the formal shift of power. Often the governing coalition has a minority in the legislature, but is supported in any votes by allies to ensure the government’s proposals pass.
The outcome of the election will allow the prime minister to put the pandemic-era mink scandal finally behind her and push forward with climate policies, including spurring the transition to green energy, as well as fixing the health service, which she pledged to do as part of her campaign.
“Mette Frederiksen emerges as the election’s biggest winner,” Rebecca Adler-Nissen, a professor of political science at the at Copenhagen University, said in an interview. “Initially, the Social Democrats will seek a broad government, but it’s difficult to see how they can agree on a political program with the opposition.”
For the first hours of the vote count, the prime minister was on track to lose her majority, which would have forced her to the negotiating table with Lars Lokke Rasmussen, a former two-term prime minister who five months ago founded the centrist Moderates. Both Ms. Frederiksen and Mr. Lokke Rasmussen have proposed a so-called grand coalition spanning the political spectrum, unseen in Denmark in more than four decades. In 2019, Mr. Lokke Rasmussen, premier at the time, offered a similar set-up without success.
Standing in the way of a grand coalition is the opposition leader, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen of the Liberals, who has ruled out such a partnership, partly due to Frederiksen’s role in the mink cull.
Turnout in the election came to 84.1%, the lowest since 1990.
First Published: November 3, 2022, 2:59 a.m.
