Denmark Parliamentary Election - June 18, 2015

[ingemann]

Election poster of Mads Holger (obnoxious radio host and entrepreneur, whose candidacy have started a small civil war in the Conservatives)



I'm not sure if he's going with:

The Great Leader look out into horizon, while he visionise his goals.

or

"Hey did I remember to lock the door"


Edit

While looking for the poster, I also found this one from a DPP candidate



And this one from Glistrup from the Progress Party



The impressive part is that he died in 2008, and the party has run in national campaigns since 2001

http://jyllands-posten.dk/politik/ECE7741217/Ahva%3F+Se+valgkampens+mest+overraskende+valgplakater/

[ingemann]

Now he reminds me of someone... Svend Åge Saltum from Borgen. From what I've read the resemblance is quite intentional.

Yes, through Saltum was more a mix of Glistrup mannerism (Glistrup spoke Bornholmsk, the only non-Swedified dialect of East Danish, it's hard to understand and seen as very rural, at the same time he was one of the best and smartest lawyers of his generation) with DPP's more goal oriented politics (the Progress Party was a bunch of right wing anarchiests). Glistrup was more of a enfant terrible or almost a provo artist. His entire career build on going against the establishment and creating chaos in general. It was always interesting, but rarely very pretty.

[ingemann]

I got

Social Liberals 82%
Social Democrats 81%
Alternative 80%
Christian Democrats 77%
SPP 74%
Red-Green Alliance 69%
DPP 69%
Liberal 65%
Liberal Alliance 49%
Conservatives 48%

[ingemann]

I got

Social Liberals 82%
Social Democrats 81%
Alternative 80%
Christian Democrats 77%
SPP 74%
Red-Green Alliance 69%
DPP 69%
Liberal 65%
Liberal Alliance 49%
Conservatives 48%

Huh, I never took you for a SocLib. I thought you were more ... traditional left?

That depend on what you mean about traditional. But let's just say that I'm not part of the bleeding heart left, and I think one of the most important duties of the government are to increase the number of jobs. Also I'm less hostile to immigration than I sometimes come across as here. But I think immigration should primary focus on benefitting the host country and its citizens, it shouldn't be some kind of social work. Some of those nuances tend to be lost in a political compass.

[ingemann]

We should also remember when election campaign begins, the government almost always close some of the gap, if it's behind. What people tells polling institutes outside election may to some extent be a protest, while when the campaign begins, people becomes more partisan. Also the number of people who are in doubt what they vote falls, and let be honest people tend to prefer what they know.

[ingemann]

Silly question, but what is happening with Thorning Schmidt and her husband? Are they now living and working in parliaments in two different countries? That must be pretty aggravating for both parties...

It's not silly, but it doesn't really fill much in a Danish context. HTS marriage are the least problem both her oiwn and Venstre have with her, and her own are happier to see her husband as a MP in UK than as a good little capitalist in Switzerland. Venstre have stayed far out of mentioning her husband, in hope people don't remember who leaked her tax papers. Only two unpleasant former members (Krarup and Langballe; the black priests*) of DPP brings it up, and the existing parties in parliaments don't mention it.

*black are not for the colour of their skin, but for the colour of their souls , or rather because they're hateful reactionary nationalist and Christian fundamentalists.

[ingemann]

Silly question, but what is happening with Thorning Schmidt and her husband? Are they now living and working in parliaments in two different countries? That must be pretty aggravating for both parties...

It's not silly, but it doesn't really fill much in a Danish context. HTS marriage are the least problem both her oiwn and Venstre have with her, and her own are happier to see her husband as a MP in UK than as a good little capitalist in Switzerland. Venstre have stayed far out of mentioning her husband, in hope people don't remember who leaked her tax papers. Only two unpleasant former members (Krarup and Langballe; the black priests*) of DPP brings it up, and the existing parties in parliaments don't mention it.

*black are not for the colour of their skin, but for the colour of their souls , or rather because they're hateful reactionary nationalist and Christian fundamentalists.

Something which a 25 mio kr(£3.35 mio) investigative commission couldn't find out of course

If there are any people who didn't know who leaked those documents, it's because they choose not to know it. Of course it's part of a bigger problem in Danish politics, politicians can get away witth leaking anything they want no matter what party they belong to (including people on the left). 

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Yes and they do have a point Kinnock shouldn't have gotten away with it, but it's hard to listen to people who break their confidentiality complain about other people's lack of moral.

[ingemann]

Are the election districts on the same boundaries as last time or do I need to make a few adjustments before making the cartographic equivalents of delicious sweeties that Danish elections always produce?

It's the same as usual I at least haven't heard and couldn't find any change from 2011.

There have been some minor changes to the number of mandates the different districts got. Copenhagen have gotten a mandate, which Copenhagen Suburbs lose (this may cost former minister Morten Bødskov (SocDem) his mandate). Beside that for the extra mandate Zealand-South Denmark lose one extra mandate to the Capital. This is a result of population changes. But there's no other changes in regional mandates.

[ingemann]

So why isn't a DPP-led government considered possible?

Was about to ask the same thing. It just seems completely nonsensical to me how the third place party that just took an absolute shellacking would get to form government...

Viewfromthenorth and sibboleth have come with some of explanation for this, and they're correct. But there's one more this is much more simple. If you want to become PM in Denmark you need to be able to count to 90. DPP doesn't have 90 MP supporting Thulesen Dahl as PM (LA and C won't support him), as such it doesn't matter how many mandates they have compared to V or whether DPP or V did best in the election.

[ingemann]

What are the differences between The Alternative and the Red-Greens?

If I'm right and I've understood things the right way, The Alternative is mainly a green party very similar to green parties in the rest of Europe, though probably slightly to the left of most other green parties as they've suggested a 30 hour labour week for instance. The Red-Greens however is to the left of Socialistic Left, which is already very leftish, so it's pretty much the most radical party of all. I hope I'm right though, as I'm far from an expert on Danish politics.

Pretty much correct. Basically, you could just say that the emphasis and rhetoric of the parties are very different. The Alternative talks mostly about sustainability, green entrepreneurship and "new politics" and their leader has said that he does not consider himself a socialist. The Red-Green Alliance members do definitely consider themselves socialist, and is basically a classic class struggle party which talks about social dumping, better conditions for the workers and the unemployed etc.
The room for a specific green party has been there for somewhile; we also speculated whether some of the SPP members would create such a party in the chaos when they left the government. In this election, the SPP has focused a lot on unemployent benefits and somewhat less on environment and climate, which has left the field open for the Alternative.

I would also say that's there's also important style difference, the Red-Greens are mostly against things, there's really not a lot of ideological creativity among them, at least not ones which reach out to a broader audience. To be completely brutal and use a little hyperbole, outside the environment, the Red-Greens have not had one new idea since the 80ties.

The Alternative on the other hand lack the ideological tradition and history of the Red-Greens, but they're for new things, they have new ideas and they're not afraid to talk about them. While the Red-Green tend to be very silent about some of their ideological baggage.
 

[ingemann]

What I really find interesting is what potential majorities this delivers for a to make deals.

VOIC is of course the obvious majority, but can DPP really cooperate with LA and C outside supporting the same government?

VOS have a nice majority on it own

VS+one of the minor parties except the conservatives also delive a majority (thanks to two North Atlantic mandates to S)

VOIR also deliver a potential majority, but it suffer from DPP having to cooperate with I and R.

A interesting majority without V is SOF. DPP have had a rather good working relationship with SPP in the election campaign.

All this is a excellent reason for DPP to stay outside the government, as they in that case don't need to make deals with IC on issues where it hurt them, except for the annual budget, and they're in a better position to push V into more left wing economical policies if they stay outside the government.

[ingemann]

From figures I saw before it seemed as if the class dimension was shockingly lacking in Denmark, at least as compared to Sweden, due to both Venstre and Dansk Folkeparti having such strong support among workers.

I still don't get the proliferation of left-wing parties in Denmark. If the Redgreens are the traditional far left and Alternativet is the alternative green left then what purpose does the SPP have?

Alternativet is a new party, as such it doesn't effect the "traditional" left structures. Where Red-Green was a coalition of everybody on the far left; Maoist, Communist, weird off shoots from SPP, it's more or less the Danish Syriza. SPP was the democratic left, who thought SocDem was to far right and pragmatic, but still able to make political compromises and deals, they also took the same niche as the Green have taken in the rest of Europe.

As for the Alternative, they're left and green, but not traditional green, they're much more social-liberal greens, not watermelon green. But again they're a new party, so it will take some time before we see what voter segments and political niche they keep in the long term. I wouldn't be surprised if the party whose vote segment they will go after in the long term will be the Social Liberals rather than SPP or the Red-Greens, just as New/Liberal Alliance voter segments have changed from mostly centre voters to classical liberals and neoliberals from Venstre and Conservatives as the party matured.

[ingemann]

Failing to do that makes HTS a failure

That wasn't exactly her fault -  it was Radikale and SF who lost 18 seats between them.

It doesn't make much of a difference for Venstre and SocDem only gaining power matters, that's success everything else is a failure. Svend Auken got some of the greatest election results for SocDem and he's still seen as a failure, because he failed to gain power.

[ingemann]

Wow DPP supporters live near S supporters.... The case that a sigfinicant base of DPP supporters were former socialdemocrat voters keeps getting stronger.

Yes but here's the things it's more complex than that.

Let's look at Rødovre election district. It's a traditional Social Democratic bastion where DPP more or less got a average result this time.

So let's look at the three big parties over several elections

2001: A 36,8(-5,6); O 15,3(+4,5); V 22,1(+8,0)
2005: A 33,3; O 16,7; V 19,5
2007: A 33,2; O 16,5; V 16,4
2011: A 31,4; O 14,3; V 18,4
2015: A 33,8; O 22,2; V 12,2

As you can see the fall in Social Democratic votes in a traditional working class suburb doesn't follow the growth of DPP. So while there's a lot of truth to it, it's not the whole truth.

[ingemann]

The Social Democrats voted for Kjaesgaard? God, this party...

SocDem votes for the speaker the majority support, SPP usual do this too. The reason SPP voted against Kjærsgaard was not because her politics, but because they doubted she had the objectivity needed to represent the entire parliament. The Red-Greens voted against because she represented the right, but they saw little difference between her or a potential Venstre candidate for speaker. Alternative voted against her, because they discovered their voters got angry, when they said they would support the majority's candidate in this case Kjærsgaard.

...and now you can throw a hissy fit over the fact that SocDem simply follow tradition, instead of making a meaningless but symbolic stand with no positive practical effect. The Danish parliament are not the hyperpartisan parliament you see in other countries, the weak minority governments make cooperation necessary and it pays not to burn bridges by going after the opponents personal.

[ingemann]

There's also another element when we talk about non-western immigrants we usual translate that into Muslims. The problem are that we really have little idea about how many Muslims there are in Denmark. The most common guess lies around 270 000, but it's likely lower as this number are based onm people coming from Muslim majority countries.