Danish Elections and Politics

[Diouf]

Morten Messerschmidt has been made deputy leader of DPP, entrenching his role as the heir apparent in the party and calming the ship after speculation about a potential leadership battle. Messerschmidt had made a couple of prominent interviews, where he criticized the party's policies as being to weak, and that there was a need for a more offensive approach with a strong focus on repatriation and EU-opposition. The 39-year old Messerschmidt replaces one of the old guard, 67-year old Søren Espersen, who accepted to resign to give Messerschmidt a more prominent position and avoid internal battles.

[Jens]

The Vegan Party has collected enough signatures and is running at the next election. Fun times...

[Diouf]

The Civic List (formerly known as Klaus Riskær Pedersen) has now lost its eligibility since its 18 months and an election since they won eligibility. The Christian Democrats are officially eligible, and scored 1.6% in the first Voxmeter poll yesterday. The party presented a big climate policy proposal last week with support for nuclear power and a stop for drilling for oil in the North Sea.

In other news, former PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen has a new book to sell, so he has had another round of media with the same messages he pushed a year ago during the election campaign. First and foremost, that the Liberals should form a government across the centre with the Social Liberals and/or Social Democrats, and that they shouldn't cooperate with New Right. Which is of course opposed to the Liberal party line, which is back to being about uniting the Blue parties. Løkke then again teased that he might withdraw from politics or start a new party. This is of course more than enough to warrant an exclusion, but so far most of the party has more treated him with pity than anger. They probably don't want to force the issue and make Løkke a martyr, although of course the situation could become even more untenable.

[Diouf]

Rape legislation tightened after Swedish example



In 2018 Sweden tightened its rape legislation by lowering the barrier for what constitutes a rape. Today a majority agreed on following the Swedish example with a rape legislation which emphasizes consent. This is meant to outlaw more situations where one part has been passive, but not explicitly rejected the intercourse. The agreement was made between the Government, Social Liberals, SPP and the Red- Green Alliance. Particularly for the non-Social Democratic left, this has been a big issue for years.

[Diouf]

Free Greens are made of this: Ex-Alternative MPs form new party



Today, ex-Alternative MP Sikandar Siddique in the middle of Nørrebro presented a new party, the Free Greens, alongside fellow MP Susanne Zimmer and former Copenhagen Mayor of Culture Niko Grünfeld. Former Alternative leader Uffe Elbæk is also involved in the project, but since he is retiring at the end of this term, he chose to leave the stage for the other candidates. Siddique said that "Free Greens will be a frontal attack on the status quo. On the big companies who pollute way too much. On the banks who cheat us. On those who destroy our nature. On the oppressors and racists. To those who become richer on our behalf. Be scared. Cause we are coming for you." In other comments, Siddique emphasized the party's lack of willingness to make compromises and criticized the Alternative for being willing to compromise with Mette Frederiksen. He also praised Extinction Rebellion, and focused on the role of a loudspeaker rather than someone who makes political agreements. He also said they wanted a red PM, which could be a Red-Green or a Social Democrat.
 
Although we did not hear about all policy areas in depth, it basically sounds like they would be to the left of the Red-Green Alliance and the Alternative. And a style of communication which sounds revolutionary compared to the two parties, who have both moved in a more pragmatic direction. It will be interesting to see how much of the former Alternative party structure will follow them and re-emerge. Elbæk is still a well-known name, but the question is how much energy he will throw behind the project with retirement looming. The Green spot will be quite crowded if the Alternative, the Vegan Party and the Free Greens are all running at the next general election.

In other news, negotiations have started about the Social Democratic marquee project of a right to early retirement for some as well as the 2021 budget. Today, an independent working group, established by the former government, presented proposals to make a more climate friendly car tariff system, so perhaps a big deal could be looming there as well.

[jaymichaud]

The Vegan Party has collected enough signatures and is running at the next election. Fun times...

Denmark's own PvDd?

[Jens]

The Vegan Party has collected enough signatures and is running at the next election. Fun times...

Denmark's own PvDd?

Sort of, but more veganism than animal welfare

[Diouf]

The Vegan Party is now officially eligible at the next general election. They have chosen the party letter G. They were included for the first time in the rolling Voxmeter poll, released this Monday. Here they received 0.3%.

[PSOL]

Would the alternative splinter take more votes from them or the Red-Greens

[Diouf]

Would the alternative splinter take more votes from them or the Red-Greens

There aren't many votes left to pinch from the Alternative, who polls below 1%. And the Vegan Party does not seem like it has left a big mark left in the wider public yet, so not many votes to steal from there. So the Red-Greens seem like the most obvious reservoir of votes, which would also make sense politically. The Red-Greens have become quite calm and parliamentary during the recent decade, so those far-left voters who just want the the most intense rhetoric could opt for the Independent Greens*. While their extreme de-growth philosophy would probably not be attractive for the old communists, they could harness the radical, young activist group for whom green and racial issues are more important.

* This is the translation they use at their webpage. Also Rasmus Paludan has started a new party called Hard Line to collect signatures after Stram Kurs was banned after trying to cheat with the signatures again, so I guess that is their preferred translation instead of Tough Line which I liked better.

[Diouf]

The Conservatives polled their best result in more than ten years today in an Epinion poll for Altinget and DR. The poll shows the party at 10.6% and 19 seats, which makes it the third biggest party. Unsurprisingly, the party seems to attract many Liberal voters as the Liberals decline to 17.7%. 29% of the Conservative voters in the poll voted Liberal in 2019. The New Right keeps rising as well, but their level of support continue to divide the pollsters. Epinion has them high, and now all the way up at 6.9%, which makes the marginally bigger than both SPP, Social Liberals and DPP in this poll. They have taken some of the last voters from Hard Line, which will soon lose its eligibility and does not get much PR, as well as a fair amount of voters from DPP and the Liberals.

The Vegan Party is at 0.3% here as well, so no immediate public breakthrough. Previously, the Vegan Party said that they liked the Liberals 0% and Social Democrats 10%, so they could end up supporting a Social Democrat PM. However, after the Government presented its signature policy proposal, earlier retirement for some group of workers, at a slaughterhouse, the Vegan Party said that they now feel unable to support Mette Frederiksen.

[Diouf]

Social Liberal leader resigns after groping scandal



After a six hour long meeting in the parliamentary group, Morten Østergaard just announced that he is resigning as Social Liberal leader. The party's meeting had in secret been moved from parliament to the Black Diamant library in Copenhagen, but the press quickly found out where the drama was happening.
In the middle of September, Social Liberal MP Lotte Rod announced that she had been groped a couple of times several years ago in a party gathering. Østergaard today admitted that he was the one, who groped Rod ten years ago. Østergaard has tried to cover up the case by saying that the case had been settled with an apology by the groper, but without announcing what had happen. Several MPs have criticized his handling of the case and lack of transparency. And after more and more Social Liberal MPs refused they were the perpetrator, it looked more and more likely that Østergaard was indeed the guilty part.

Current deputy leader Sofie Carsten Nielsen will take over as leader. The 45-year old was Minister for Research, Innovation and Higher Education in the last year of the Thorning-government. She has been deputy leader and parliamentary group leader since 2015.

[Diouf]

Carsten Nielsen won leadership in contested election



The new Social Liberal leader Sofie Carsten Nielsen met the press after her election as leader. She was flanked by most of the parliamentary group, including Lotte Rod (furthest right in the picture). Carsten Nielsen confirmed that there was an election between her and Martin Lidegaard, the former Foreign Minister, which she won 12-4.

Lidegaard just wrote in a Facebook post that he ran because he wanted a more centrist strategy than that which Østergaard and Carsten Nielsen have used. He believes the party could gain more influence on its key issues by moving closer to the center. This is probably aimed at primarily the party's immigration policy, where they have been loud about a very leftist policy, which is the main reason why it's unpalatable for the Social Democrats to include them in government.

[Diouf]

No way Forward



Today, MP Simon Emil Ammitzbøll-Bille and former MP Christina Egelund announced that they are giving up on their new parti Fremad (Forward). Ammitzbøll-Bille said the main reason behind the decision is that he is not able to put the energy into the project that it needs. However, he does add that it hasn't helped with his lack of credibility after his time in the leadership of Liberal Alliance. Also he thinks the political environment with several new parties have made their mission more difficult. He says the ambition was to break the national conservative focus of the Blue Bloc, but he hasn't been able to do that. For the moment, he said he will continue as a "free bird" in parliament, but added that he is closer to the exit than the entrance. So we must assume he is looking for a new job outside parliament. If he leaves parliament, Liberal Alliance will be restored to 4 seats as he will be replaced by 36-year old entrepreneur Danny Malkowski, who has a few months experience as replacement MP. I believe Malkowsi would be the first proper MP with double citizenship (one of his parents is German), which has only been allowed in Denmark since September 2015.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

He says the ambition was to break the national conservative focus of the Blue Bloc, but he hasn't been able to do that.

This seems like a real white whale of Danish politics?

[Diouf]

He says the ambition was to break the national conservative focus of the Blue Bloc, but he hasn't been able to do that.

This seems like a real white whale of Danish politics?

Yeah, that space is probably pursued even more because that point of view is so overrepresented in elite opinion. From there you often hear the wishes for a "respectable" centre-right party you can vote for without getting all that dirty immigration talk. However, in reality that market is probably fairly small. Although, in a country with a 2% threshold, it should of course be enough to get into parliament if you have the right figure and the right style. So in the recent year, there have been three different attempts without success. But both Klaus Riskær Pedersen and Simon Emil Ammitzbøll-Bille had very low favorability ratings, so were never prime candidates for doing a Macron. Christian Democrats, in some respect, were more or less the same place politically, but due to the party's background and religious values, it is still largely another group of voters they attract than the more obvious urban socially liberal types, which Forward pursued. Klaus Riskær Pedersen was also less ideologically coherent with a mix of very different policies and some big tax reform scheme.

So if a big personality like Lars Løkke Rasmussen actually founds a party in this space, he should have good chances of getting in, but not with any big amount of votes. From the discussion in the Social Liberals, you can see that there is a minor group around Lidegaard who would like them to become somewhat more centrist on immigration and pursue influence, which could move the party closer to that famous "respectable centre-right" spot. However, as it was seen, that idea was easily defeated in the Social Liberals, but perhaps a breakout is a possibility. Like back in 2007, where two Social Liberals, who wanted the party to cooperate more with the right, broke out and, along with a left-leaning Conservative, started the New Alliance, which for a while looked to be very successful.

[Diouf]

Government finds majority with DPP to ensure key election promise of lower retirement age for some groups



Mette Frederiksen's key policy in the 2019 election campaign was a proposal to lower the retirement age for some groups of workers. Now the Government has managed to find a majority for a deal with DPP, SPP and Red-Green Alliance. When the agreement enters into force in 2022, around 40 000 persons will be able to retire between 1-3 years early; a number rising to 55 000 in 2025 due to demographics. The right to retire early is based on number of years on the labour market from the age of 16 until six years before the ordinary retirement age (age 61 as retirement age will be 67 in 2022). 44 years on the labour market means you can retire 3 years early, 43 years will mean 2 years early and 42 years will mean 1 year early. Periods as unemployed or doing work life education will count as employment. Persons with high earnings in the pension system will only be able to retire on a lower benefit.

In addition to the new right to early retirement, the parties also agreed to upgrade the early retirement system for worn down workers, which was agreed in 2019 as the Løkke Rasmussen government's answer to Frederiksen's proposal. Currently you can get that benefit if you are not able to work at least 15 hours a week; now it will be 18 hours a week. Additionally, the parties agreed to finance a number of initiatives to improve work environments.

There will be no proposal to finance the deal for 2022, where the money will be taken from the current reserves. From 2023, the parties intend to finance the agreement. Some of it will come from higher taxes on companies' property value increases as well as an increased corporate tax for all financial institutions. Additionally there will be cuts to the municipal job centers. Finally DPP managed to include the idea of introducing electronic cash registers for kiosks and restaurants to reduce fraud; since the proposal is not fully developed yet, it hasn't been marked with an income. Any potential extra income from this idea will go to reduce the new tax for financial institutions and for more work environment funding.

[H. Ross Peron]

Glad to see the DPP is one of the few right-wing populist parties willing to implement economic populist proposals. They are better than the SocLibs by far imo.

[Diouf]

Morten Østergaard is now on sick leave after the emergence of three additional cases of sexual harassment/groping of three women in the Social Liberal party apparatus in 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively. One of them, Katrine Robsøe, became a MP at the 2019 election. 

[Diouf]

Tensions reach boiling point in Social Liberals as cannons are aimed at Carsten Nielsen

In recent days, interest in the Social Liberal groping scandal has turned towards new leader Sofie Carsten Nielsen, and whether she has been truthful about how much she, as deputy leader, knew about the cases and when. Today that escalated when MP Ida Auken made explosive allegations about the new leader.

Auken said that she back in 2017 told Carsten Nielsen about a recent case of sexual harassment by Morten Østergaard, where he had groped a young woman against her will and "tried to get her into bed with him by using unacceptable behaviour". Auken asked Carsten Nielsen to take actions against Østergaard, but Auken claimed her response was that they had acted by starting to man-mark the party leader and make him go to bed (alone) when he became too drunk. In 2018, she claims to have met Carsten Nielsen again, and said she had lost confidence in Østergaard as leader with his years of unacceptable behaviour towards women as one of the reasons. Auken says that Carsten Nielsen "without a doubt knew about Østergaard's behaviour, and chose to cover up his behaviour instead of taking the necessary action". She criticizes the new party leadership for trying to close this chapter in party history without dealing with the obvious leadership failure.

Carsten Nielsen answered back: "I'm furious about the accusations made by Ida Auken today. I wholly reject her story. I have had no knowledge of the case she's describing. Ida making those false accusations cannot be seen as anything but an attempt to destabilize the party".

So it seems hard to imagine that there won't be a schism here. When Carsten Nielsen can make such a confident rebuke, she must be quite certain of her support. So it seems likely that Auken will leave the party. And then the question is whether other MPs will follow.

[Diouf]

A polling average based on recent polls from Voxmeter, Epinion, Gallup and Yougov.
Results compared with the results from the same pollsters after the corona lockdown in March.

Social Democrats 31,1% (-2,7%)
Social Liberals 7,3% (=)
Conservatives 10,3% (+3,0%)
New Right 6,8% (+3,3%)
SPP 6,8% (=)
Vegan Party 0,8% (new)
Liberal Alliance 2,1% (=)
Christian Democrats 1,5% (new)
DPP 6,6% (-1,4%)
Hard Line 0,7% (-0,4%)
Liberals 18,0% (-2,4%)
Red-Green Alliance 6,9% (-0,6%)
The Alternative 0,8 (-0,1%)
Others 0,4% (-0,6%)

Red Bloc-ish 53,7% (-2,5%)
Blue Bloc-ish 45,9% (+3,1%)
Red Bloc-ish 95 seats (-5)
Blue Bloc-ish 80 seats (+5)


So the Social Democrats are still clearly the biggest party, but the support has faded a bit since the corona support peak. And this seem to be support flowing back towards the centre-right parties as the support for the two blocs are now getting closer to that of the 2019 election. And since wasted votes are now also present on the left with the Alternative and the Vegan Party, the Blue Bloc would actually get a seat more than in the 2019 election on this average. However, internally in the Blue Bloc there are big movements. Both the Conservatives and New Right are surging, while Liberals and DPP are in decline. Hard Line is losing its eligibility very soon, which would likely give some decimals further to the New Right. And there are increasing talks about Conservative leader Søren Pape Poulsen as a potential PM candidate. The polls are mostly conducted before the Social Liberal groping scandal, which have turned into a ugly civil war. Voters tend not to like these things, so I would expect them to take a hit in the coming polls.

[Diouf]

Copenhagen Mayor resigns after decades of sexual harassment



Just a few weeks after Social Liberal leader Morten Østergaard resigned, today another big name had to leave after a long trail of sexual harassment. Yesterday evening, Copenhagen Lord Mayor Frank Jensen delivered his intention to stay on at a bizarre press conference, shortly after a meeting where he gained support from a majority of local Social Democrat leaders. However, today Jensen announced that he is resigning from all his political posts as Lord Mayor, councillor and Social Democrat deputy leader. This suggests that the Social Democratic leadership found it untenable for him to stay on with local and regional elections in a year.

Stories of his harassment at office Christmas parties have been well-known for years, but after the recent focus on the topic, several new cases have been revealed, dating from the late 90s to last year, including against the current leader of Copenhagen Social Democrat Youth. Frank Jensen became a MP back in 1987 and became Minister of Science in 1994. In 1996 he rose to the key post as Minister of Justice in Nyrup Rasmussen government, where he stayed until the centre-left lost power in 2001. In 2005 when Social Democrat leader Mogens Lykketoft resigned after another election defeat, Frank Jensen ran against Helle Thorning-Schmidt for the leadership. Thorning edged out the victory, and Jensen decided not to run for parliament in 2007. In 2009, he became the lead candidate for the Social Democrats in the Copenhagen local elections and afterwards won the most powerful position as Lord Mayor of Copenhagen. A feat which was repeated in 2013 and 2017.

Lars Weiss, Social Democrat group leader in the Copenhagen City Council, will take over the post as Lord Mayor temporarily. The Social Democrat group will choose its new leader, who will then take over the post as Lord Mayor until next year's local election. However, it could easily be a short term solution as the group in the City Council does not necessarily have the right candidate to fight the 2021 elections, particularly as the Social Democrats are more and more under threat in Copenhagen, particularly from the Red-Green Alliance. The Social Democrats have two deputy leaders, one from parliament and one from local/regional politics, so one of their mayors will become the new deputy leader.

[Diouf]

Shock poll from Megafon for TV2.

- Social Liberals halved to 3.9% after groping scandal and leadership chaos

- Tight race between the blocs with only a narrow 50,2 - 49,3% Red lead

- New Right (10.0%) double the size of DPP (5.2%)

- Conservatives increase further to 11.3%

- Corona bounce fading for Social Democrats down to 27.9%

Tabloid Ekstra Bladet reports that Social Liberal MP Jens Rohde is investigating whether it would be possible to form a new centrist liberal party, united Lars Løkke Rasmussen + others from the soft wing of the Liberals, Rohde + Lidegaard from the Social Liberal right wing + Ammitzbøll-Bille and Egelund who recently failed with a similar project in Forward. Let's see if something ever materializes.

[Diouf]

Mink Madness puts government under pressure

The pressure is mounting on the government after revelations that it acted illegally in the Mink COVID case. On 4 November, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration ordered that all 17 million mink in Denmark must be put down before 16 November. This was due to concerns that a mutated COVID-virus from minks could be so different as to reduce the positive effect of a COVID vaccine in Denmark. 7 municipalities with many COVID-ill mink were placed under tougher lockdown restrictions. Firstly, authorities talked up a particular COVID variant, Cluster 5, but that has not been found in humans since September, so now the argument is the general risk of mutated Mink COVID. Different scientists give different answers to how dangerous this could prove. Politically, the government's support parties tended to criticize it for not acting fast enough since COVID-ill minks have been known for months, while the Blue Bloc parties were more subdued and questioned whether the danger warranted such a radical decision.

However, this weekend it was revealed that the government does not have the legal basis to order this mass cull; it could only make that order for COVID-ill mink farms and farms close by. On Sunday, Minister of Agriculture, Mogens Jensen, said that the government knew it did not have the legal basis to order this, but did it anyway due to the urgency of the matter. Today, Mogens Jensen then changed his answer 180 degrees and said that the government was not aware of its lack of legal basis to order the killing of all minks. Mette Frederiksen repeated the latter version today, which seems understandable as Jensen's first answer would not only suggest they openly broke the law, but also likely broke the Constitution which explicitly requires a legal basis for expropriations. And most legal scholars argue that this will be deemed an expropriation, which would also mean a substantial compensation for mink farmers in Denmark. Now the question is whether we will see any actual evidence of how much the key players in government knew about the illegality of the order.

All the Blue parties have already demanded Mogens Jensen's resignation, but so far none of the Red parties have supported it, although SPP and Red-Green Alliance are calling for further investigation into the case. New Right has called a vote of no-confidence in the entire government.

The government has now proposed a legal basis which would allow the order. They asked for it to be expressed through parliament, but it seems like this won't be possible as all Blue parties does not support using the express procedure.

[Diouf]

Fock Resignation: Alternative leader quits after less than a year in charge



Less than ten months after a contentious leadership election which ended up splitting the party, the Alternative is now headed for a new leadership election. Josephine Fock has stepped down as leader of the troubled green party. She says, "I have laid all my love in the Alternative, but it has been too difficult to unite the party". While the party has dropped far below the threshold in opinion polls, I at least thought that they were now fairly united after Elbæk and his gang left the party. But apparently there are still divisions in the membership.

The party's only remaining MP, Torsten Gejl, has already said that he will not stand for leader as he is too busy doing all the party's parliamentary work. The party's is already in deep troubles with 1% or less in most polls, and at least one new direct rival, the Vegan Party. I'm not entirely sure who are actually still members of the party, and thereby leadership candidates, after the exodus of former and current MPs. In the last leadership election, the strategy of the relationship towards the government played a significant role with Fock aiming for a closer bond to the Social Democrat government. This could perhaps be up for discussion again, although it seems that the party is in quite deep problems, no matter the strategy.