Danish Elections and Politics

[Diouf]

Secondly, how common is party switching in Denmark compared to other countries? Ida Auken’s ride through three parties is quite something.

I found the below graph, which shows the number of party switches in Denmark from the 50es until 2015.
It is from this research by Marie Kaldahl Nielsen & Helene Helboe Pedersen:
https://www.djoef-forlag.dk/openaccess/oep/files/2017/3_2017/3_2017_6.pdf

So as it can be seen, there has been an increasing tendency to party shifts. We are at 11 party switches so far in this term, which is record high in modern times. The tendency seem as expected when considering that voters are also switching parties more often now + there are more parties & increased fragmentation.

[Diouf]

Five candidates have announced a run for leader of the Alternative.

By far the most prominent of them is Franciska Rosenkilde, the current Mayor of Culture and Leisure in Copenhagen. Rosenkilde was elected a Copenhagen councillor in 2017 with 1 893 personal votes, and after Niko Grünfeld had to resign in 2018, she was chosen as the party's new Mayor of Culture and Leisure.
Another candidate who is slightly known is Troels Jakobsen; the former head of the Alternative Copenhagen association. While many Alternative candidates focus on green issues, he has focused most on his attention on job centers. As a playwriter, he once made a play about the treatment of unemployed in job centers, and he has talked extensively about his own experiences as unemployed. However, his very outspoken style has also created some conflicts; he was criticized for his nasty campaign against the former Social Liberal Mayor of Employment and Integration, and was very scornful of the Alternative party leadership, when they chose the Culture mayorship over the Employment and Integration one. Jakobsen was a candidate for councillor in Copenhagen in 2017, winning 754 votes. It was not enough to be elected, but after a number of retirements, he will now serve the last months of the term as a Copenhagen councillor.
The three remaining candidates are Jan Kristoffersen, a Deloitte consultant, who won 2 417 votes nationwide as a European Parliament candidate in 2019, Thor Clasen Jonasen, an assistant professor in Aarhus who won 203 personal votes when running as a candidate for councillor there in 2017 and Thomas Due Nielsen, who has been a part of the local party board in Randers.

The five candidates now have to get 100 signatures from party members in order for them to finalize their candidature before the extraordinary party congress on 7 February. Rosenkilde and Jakobsen have already collected the 100 signatures, while the other three candidates have yet to reach that threshold. The former two looks like the big favourites for the party leadership, but whoever wins have a difficult job on their hands.

This election is taking place today. Rosenkilde is the big favourite with Jakobsen the most likely upset candidate. Kristoffersen and Jonasen also managed to get 100 signatures, so are also on the ballot but unlikely to have any real chance. Nielsen did not collect enough signatures.

The party is having a virtual party congress. Party members will vote. If one candidate gets 50%+ of the votes, the candidate is elected. Otherwise, the worst placed candidate is eliminated and there is a new round of voting.

[Diouf]

Franciska Rosenkilde elected new Alternative leader



45-year old Franciska Rosenkilde was elected leader of the Alternative in the first round. She received 260 out of the 471 votes cast which ensured her election in the first round. Rosenkilde is Mayor of Culture and Leisure in Copenhagen, and with the local elections this November, the party can hope a slightly increased prominence for her can help the party retain representation in the Copenhagen, the party's stronghold. Nationwide the party had 20 local councillors elected in 2017, but 9 have since left the party. Rosenkilde's first big test will be to ensure that there are any left after the local and regional elections. While 4 of their 5 MPs have defected, the party is ensured a place a spot on the next general election ballot as long as their lone remaining MP Torsten Gejl keeps fighting under that banner.

[Diouf]

New Red-Green leader - matriarchy continues



Today 29-year old Mai Villadsen replaced Pernille Skipper as leader of the Red-Greens. Due to their rotation rules, Pernille Skipper can't run in the next general election. Therefore they have decided to change leader now. Villadsen defeated the experienced Søren Søndergaard, who has served several terms as MP and MEP (People's Movement against EU), in the internal vote in the parliamentary group. In 2020 Villadsen was only 5th in the yearly ranking of parliamentary candidates among the Red-Green membership, one position behind Søndergaard. So she was not as obvious a party favourite as Skipper, when she took over from Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen. However, now that the parliamentary group has chosen Villadsen, I would expect the members to vote her on top of the ranking in 2021. The ranking determines the order in which the parliamentary canddiates can choose constituencies, which is quite important as Red-Greens, as the only party, uses semi-closed lists at the general election. So 1st place would likely mean top of the list in Copenhagen, their strongest constituency.

Villadsen moved from Herning in Central Jutland to Copenhagen after her first year of high school. She graduated from Gefion High School in 2011 and then had a year as leader of the Association of High School students. From 2013-2015, she worked as a youth consultant in a trade union before becoming an adviser for the Red-Greens in parliament in 2015. In 2019, she was elected a MP in the Northern Zealand constituency with 2 572 personal votes. Since then she has been the party's spokesperson on climate and environment.

[Diouf]

Centrist update:

Lars Løkke has said that he does not expect that it's possible to properly start a new party before it's possible to meet freely again, so I assume it could happen sometime during the summer. But there might be developments and teasers before that to keep the attention. He also said that he does not expect to contend the local and regional elections in November, as his aim is to influence the big lines on a national level where cooperation across the centre is needed. This already happens many places in local politics.

There are rumours that the two independent MPs Jens Rohde and Orla Østerby are in discussions with the Christian Democrats. Østerby would seem quite logical for a fairly centrist Conservative as him, and would in many ways be similar to Per Ørum in 2010-11, who left the Conservatives and joined Christian Democrats after a DUI sentence. The problem for Østerby is that he is very much a local MP, who's not much known outside of his small pockets of support in the Struer and Holstebro district in the Western Jutland constituency. And in Western Jutland, the Christian Democrats best card Kristian Andersen is running and would safely win their seat if they enter parliament. So Østerby could either run in his home districts and win votes to "help the cause" with a low chance of getting elected, or run in a another constituency, where he's not known and could also have low chances of election. Rohde would seem a weirder fit, in some senses. He has been awarded Politician of the Year by the LGBT association for supporting their causes back when he was in the Liberals, and in 2003 boycotted the annual religious ceremony at the opening of parliament because the priest was from a quite hard core Evangelical church. Also he is just generally considered somewhat of a loose cannon. But Rohde wants to be in a centrist, moderate party, which Christian Democrats fit, and he is apparently a member of CDU in Germany, so it's not like it's unthinkable for him to be a part of a Christian organizaion. He has probably become less radical in his modernity since the early 00es, but I still wonder how he would work with the Christian Democrat grassroots.

Finally, Martin Lidegaard has reached a peace deal with Social Liberal leader Sofie Carsten Nielsen. Lidegaard has been promoted to Deputy Leader instead of Andreas Steenberg, and apparently they have agreed to lead the party along a more centrist course. Lidegaard himself has said that he has considered whether to leave the party and perhaps start something new, and today Ekstra Bladet reveals that one of Lidegaard's associates had even gone so far as to official register the new party "Midten - Danmarks bæredygtige parti"(Centre - Denmark's sustainable party) and bought a web domain. That registration will now be cancelled.

[Diouf]

Polling average made by politologi.dk.

[Diouf]

Kristian Jensen leaves parliament to become special envoy to the UN



After 23 years in parliament, Kristian Jensen has today resigned from his seat. He will become the government's special envoy to the UN; with the main goal of securing Denmark a seat in the UN Security Council 2025-2026. The prominent Liberal politician is the first person to benefit from the controversial change to the diplomatic rulebook, which the government made last week. Until now, diplomats were only picked from among civil servants with years of service, primarily in the Foreign Ministry, but the Government changed the rules to allow others to be appointed, which opens the doors to seasoned politicians like Jensen.

Jensen has played a big role in Danish politicis for decades. He graduated as a bank clerk in 1993 and worked in that role for five years, before being elected a MP for the Liberals in 1998. In 2001, he was promoted to the important post as Speaker for Financial Affairs for the party, and in 2004 he became Minister of Taxation. He was elected deputy leader of the Liberals in 2009, when the previous deputy leader, Lars Løkke Rasmussen took over as leader and PM. When Løkke made a big government reshuffle in 2010, Jensen was axed as Minister and instead became Parliamentary Group Leader. In the opposition years, the relationsship between the two were not very good, and after Løkke's expenses scandal, Jensen came close to taking down Løkke as leader in the famous 2014 Liberal Leadership crisis. Instead a deal was made to ensure Jensen's prominent position and influence. In 2015, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in 2016, when the government was expanded with Conservatives and Liberal Alliance, he became Minister of Finance. When Løkke refused to walk away from the Liberal leadership after the election defeat in 2019, Jensen upped the ante against him, and in the end, they both ended up leaving their positions.

Jensen's replacement will likely became Kenneth Mikkelsen, who is 1st replacement MP in the Western Jutland constituency for the party, and leader of a local business council. The party is probably very keen for him to take over, because the 2nd replacement MP, Gitte Willumsen, has defected to the Conservatives since the election.

[Diouf]

Liberal MP join the Conservatives - "the nationalconservative leg of the party is gone"



Today the Liberal MP Britt Bager decided to leave the Liberals and join the Conservatives. She says she admires Søren Pape's leadership, and that she's looking forward to join a harmonious parliamentary group. Bager says that the Liberals are no longer the party she joined ten years ago: "I am borgerlig before I am liberal, but I no longer see the Liberals that way. I was happy in a party where both Jan E. Jørgensen and Inger Støjberg could be members, but now the nationalconservative leg of the party is gone. This has upset the balance in the party".
In addition to criticism of a too soft Liberal line on immigration, she also argues that the party has been too stubborn in relation to its idea of a "tax increase stop", which meant the party recently did not join the agreement on more funds for the police because it included minor tax increases.

The 44-year old Bager has a law degree, which she took during part of her 10 years working as a stewardess for SAS. Later she added a master in journalism and political communication, before becoming a consultant for the Liberals from 2009-13. In 2015, she was elected a MP for the party in Eastern Jutland. She rose fast through the ranks, and in the last year of the centre-right government, she had the prominent role as political spokesperson for the Liberals. She was re-elected in 2019 with 10 490 personal votes; the 3rd highest among the 6 Liberal MPs elected in the Eastern Jutland constituency.

[Diouf]

Can someone get me up to speed on why Venstre have collapsed in the polls, seemingly to the benefit of the Conservatives and Nye Borgerlige?

Summarized, Liberals have been plagued by internal troubles with the party's two biggest vote getters leaving the party in different directions. Former leader and PM Lars Løkke wants a more centrist line with government cooperation across the middle (and is superbitter about the way he was forced to resign as leader) while Inger Støjberg wants the party to follow a more distinctly right-wing line on immigration plus she was impeached by her own party. Internal troubles in itself is often enough to scare voters away, and those who follow the Støjberg line has likely moved right to Conservatives or New Right, while does following Løkke is a minor group, and some might be undecided in polls now, waiting for his new party. Finally, like most other parties, they have lost a bit to the Social Democrats in a general covid effect.

You can read more on previous pages.

[Diouf]

The biggest net movements between the parties since the 2019 election, according to altinget.dk analysis by Kasper Møller Hansen, based on Epinion and Gallup polling.
Percentages below are percentages of the whole electorate

Social Democrats
1.6% gained from Social Liberals
1.6% gained from Liberals
1.0% gained from SPP

Conservatives
5.0% gained from Liberals

New Right
2.5% gained from Liberals
1.8% gained from DPP
0.9% gained from Hard Line (not eligible for the next election)

[Diouf]

DPP MP Morten Messerschmidt will be charged for misuse of 100.000 DKK worth of EU funds. It requires parliament to lift his immunity, but that will be a formality, which everybody will vote for. The investigation by OLAF, and then the Danish authorities have lasted a combined five years. There have been stories about several different aspects of how Messerschmidt handled the funds from the EU parties MELD & FELD. In the end, he is only charged for one aspect: Using 100.000 DKK for a DPP parliamentary group summer conference in the summer of 2015.
Messerschmidt is the heir apperent in the DPP, so his court proceedings could give a bit more breathing space for Thulesen Dahl as Messerschmidt will likely not push to take over the leadership while the case is on-going.

Edit: He is also charged for forging a signature on a hotel receipt.

[Diouf]

Immigration policy back in focus

After immigration policy has had a place in the shadows for several months, recent weeks have seen several immigration-related subjects in the headlines.

The Government, Liberals, Conservatives and Liberal Alliance make an agreement which tightens the citizenship rules. Foreigners, who have been sentenced to jail, whether conditional or unconditional, cannot get Danish citizenship. Previously, it was still possible if it was below a 1 year unconditional sentence. And persons who have received fines or other punishments for benefit fraud or "social control" must wait 6 years after the sentence to apply. Applicants are now required to have been in emplyment for at least 3,5 of the previous 4 years. And the citizenship test will now have 10 unprepared questions, instead of five. The five new questions will be on Danish values. If individuals do not live up to the rules, they can appeal for exceptions to the rules to Parliament's Committee of Citizenship.
The parties also agreed to investigate the possibility of broadening the types of crimes which can see you stripped of Danish citizenship, but this has to be within international conventions. Currently, it's basically only possibly for terrorists or others who are deemed a danger to the state. The parties want gang crimes to be included as well.

The government has started to review the residency permits of Syrian refugees as the situation there is deemed to have improved to the degree, where there is no longer basis for a general refugee status in Denmark. Since there is no real cooperation with the Assad regime, for the Syrians to actually leave, it will probably have to be voluntarily. So a good chunks of the Syrians will probably choose to stay in Denmark at the deportation centers instead. The leftliberal media, even outside Denmark, is of course appalled by this.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/18/europe/denmark-syrian-refugees-damascus-intl/index.html

Finally, the situation of the Danish citizens in the Kurdish camps of ISIS-terrorists are causing some difficulty for the government. Several ministers, the Foreign Minister, Defence Minister and Minister of Justice, are under fire for exactly which information they had and when about the intelligence services' thoughts about the persons in the camps. Some intelligence reports seems to indicate, that there could be a danger of some of the children being smuggled out and trained in terrorism. Politically, there is mostly agreement that it can be okay to take home the children. However, the problem is whether you then have to take their terrorist parents home as well. The government and the Blue parties (except Liberal Alliance) are standing quite firm on not making an effort to take home the children, if it means taking home their parents as well, whereas the other left-wing parties are in favour of taking them all home. Since they are Danish citizens, they of course cannot be denied entrance if they suddenly show up at the Danish border, so if the camps are closed and the persons freed, they could come anyway at some point.

[Diouf]

There are rumours that the two independent MPs Jens Rohde and Orla Østerby are in discussions with the Christian Democrats. Østerby would seem quite logical for a fairly centrist Conservative as him, and would in many ways be similar to Per Ørum in 2010-11, who left the Conservatives and joined Christian Democrats after a DUI sentence. The problem for Østerby is that he is very much a local MP, who's not much known outside of his small pockets of support in the Struer and Holstebro district in the Western Jutland constituency. And in Western Jutland, the Christian Democrats best card Kristian Andersen is running and would safely win their seat if they enter parliament. So Østerby could either run in his home districts and win votes to "help the cause" with a low chance of getting elected, or run in a another constituency, where he's not known and could also have low chances of election. Rohde would seem a weirder fit, in some senses. He has been awarded Politician of the Year by the LGBT association for supporting their causes back when he was in the Liberals, and in 2003 boycotted the annual religious ceremony at the opening of parliament because the priest was from a quite hard core Evangelical church. Also he is just generally considered somewhat of a loose cannon. But Rohde wants to be in a centrist, moderate party, which Christian Democrats fit, and he is apparently a member of CDU in Germany, so it's not like it's unthinkable for him to be a part of a Christian organizaion. He has probably become less radical in his modernity since the early 00es, but I still wonder how he would work with the Christian Democrat grassroots.

Jens Rohde moves to the Christian Democrats.
The MP has just announced that he will be representing the party, giving them their first parliamentary representation in ten years.
Rohde states "There is a lack of a borgerlig project. Nobody knows what Ellemann or Pape want to do. For us, this is a centrist project, but also an ambitious project with many important ideas". Rohde says that all the centre-right and right-wing parties are now nationalconservative, and that the Social Liberals have gone too far left on the value questions.

The ambitions are to be found in the party's new 2030 plan, which he and party leader Isabella Arendt will present on Wednesday. However, many of the points are already presented in Rohde's transfer interview. Some of the points in it is lower income taxes, more freedom for schools + more free schools, more local and regional self-determination and a strengthened EU. There is also a old KD classic like increased development aid. On immigration, the party wants to abolish the lower benefits for immigrants and the ban on family reunification for under-24s. However, in order to not appear as too far left, it will propose an "instructive cap" on 1.000 refugees a year. So it sounds like the party have limits to the migration, but of course in practice it can't work if you want to abide by international conventions. Crucially, the party further weakens its opposition to abortions. In the last election, the party went from opposition to abortion to mandatory counseling about the alternatives to abortion. Now this is watered down so that health care service must say that women have a right to receive counseling about alternatives. Rohde says the plan has been approved by the party's relevant committees. The media will have no problem in finding a few critical hardcore Christian members, but if the party's most prominent councillors are actually on board with it, it seems like an interesting project.

[Diouf]

Danish People's party also way lower too.  Is that because of Social Democrats' hardline on immigration and could Danish Social Democrats be a model of how Social Democrats elsewhere in Europe can rebound.  It seems a lot of blue collar types are left wing on economic issues but culturally conservative while most social democratic parties are left wing on both thus on cultural issues offside with their voter base thus paying a big price.  Despite my disagreement here, I've often thought a culturally conservative platform combined with left wing economic policies is a way for both Social Democrats to rebound elsewhere and to drive down support for far right?  Unless I am misreading why DPP has imploded, how come other Social Democrats haven't caught on and tried similar approach as Denmark one of few areas they are doing well in Europe.  Yes part of it is covid bounce, but Finland has had one of the lowest COVID rates in Europe yet their social democrats are struggling despite having a young charismatic leader.

Yes, it is certainly a strategy that would make sense to consider for Social Democrats in many other countries. And the voting segment you describe is indeed still a significant part of the electorates in most countries, and crucially several of them are movable beween left wing and right wing parties. So it seems very likely that it would increase the overall left wing vote share in most countries, if the Social Democrat party adopted more restrictive immigration policies.
However, there is also a number of features about the Danish Social Democrats and the Danish political system, which means the strategy has had a good chance of working here. So in countries without these aspects, it would be more difficult to actually carry out the strategy.

There is generally agreement in the party about the main analysis: High and continued immigration from non-Western countries undermines the welfare state, both due to the economic costs of higher unemployment for this group, the economic and cultural costs of increased crime and anti-social behaviour, and the cultural costs of increased fragmentation and the lack of common values. In the Danish Social Democrats, this analysis is not only that of Mette Frederiksen, but also of those who will lead the party after her,  Tesfaye, Hummelgaard, Dybvad in the current cabinet and the significant voices in the youth party. In many  other Social Democratic parties, there will probably still be a big chunk of important persons, who do not agree with this analysis, and would prefer to start a civil war internally and destroy the party than to let those who agree with the analysis carry it through. So this aspect will certainly require time and effort for internal conversion, and/or an extremely strong party leader.

It is possible to have a governing majority with alternative left parties, who do not agree with the analysis. In Denmark, the Social Democrats could attract DPP and Liberal voters across the middle, while accepting to bleed some cosmopolitan voters to the alternative left parties. Because the alternative left parties were willing to support Frederiksen as PM, and allow her to carry out the policies of the majority (both in parliament and the population) on immigration. That is a result of a combination of aspects of the Danish political atmosphere:

A PR electoral system instead of FPTP. In a FPTP system, the balancing act can be a lot more difficult, and the existence of an alternative left can destroy you.
A tradition of minority government instead of majority governments. With a minority government (with license to make different policies with different parties), a Social Democrat cabinet is uniquely well-positioned to carry out the policies of the majority on both increased welfare spending and restrictive immigration. But if the tradition is majority government/restricted minority governments, then it becomes much harder. In a majority government with the alternative left parties the immigration policies will be blocked, while in a majority government with the centre-right parties, the economic policies will be blocked. If the NZ option of a government with an anti-immigration party is viable, then a majority government could still work on the policies, but that is probably rarely an option. Many anti-immigration parties can be too unstable, based on the whims of an erratic party leader and sometimes not reflecting the welfare wishes of their voters.
Less obstacles to carrying out policies. In Denmark, there is an unicameral parliament, which is able to carry through policies shiftly and decisively. There is no Constitutional Court. The Supreme Court is the guardian of the constitution, but basically never makes any rulings against government policies. Also Denmark is not a part of the EU cooperation on JHA affairs, so some of the toxic policies like refugee quota are avoided. Denmark is still following international UN conventions and the ECHR, so there are obstacles, but less than elsewhere. In other countries, there will be many more obstacles to actually carrying out strict immigration policies, so that it is simply more cumbersome to carry these policies through. A more elite-dominated, pro-migration second chamber can slow down or even amend restrictive immigration policies, an activist Constitutional Court, often with left wing values, can rule against restrictive immigration policies, and EU rules and regulations can introduce toxic pro-migration policies.

[Diouf]

Were there no demands on migration from the other Red bloc parties to support Frederiksen?

The quote below is from the memorandum of understanding between the majority parties. There were a few concessions, but the broad line continued. And the government has, as described on previous pages, just recently agreed new restrictions on citizenship, and is keeping a strict line on most issues. There is actually some movement on the last point below about a new asylum procedure. Parliament will soon start to debate the government's proposal on this issue, which opens for the possibility of asylum seekers being transferred to a third country, where the asylum process will take place. And if asylum is granted, it will be for stay in that third country. If it were to become reality, it would of course be a historic change in European asylum policy towards a system which no longer encourages migrants to travel all the way through Europe to seek for asylum. But there is still some way to go. There needs to be an agreement with a third country. Minister of Immigration Tesfaye says they are negotiating with 5-10 countries, and has just returned from Rwanda. The leading ministry official on the issue have been in Ethiopia and Tunisia. And even if it seems like it is legal, I'm quite certain that ECHR and interpretations of UN conventions will be applied in any possible way to dent it.

On immigration, the agreement has some significant conessions to the other centre-left parties, but many of the current broad policy lines are kept. The most significant concession is probably that refugees, who no longer need protection, will be allowed to stay in Denmark if they have worked for two years straight. The whole point of the so-called paradigm shift was that refugees, who no longer need protection, should be forced to leave to a much bigger degree than now, partly by giving much less importance to whether they have worked or finished education while in Denmark. The other concessions were more expected. The families with children at the centre for rejected asylum seekers will be moved to a new, separate centre with better conditions, the proposed new centre for foreign criminals awaiting deportation on a remote island will not be created, and Denmark will start taking UN quota refugees again (number not specified). The Social Democrat wish of a new asylum system is mentioned (with fewer/none spontanteous asyum seekers, more support for areas with many refugees), but it focuses on working on this internationally and staying within conventions.

[Diouf]

The Independent Greens, the former Alternative establishment with Elbæk & co, are starting to speed up their collection of signatures a fair bit, and could be able to reach eligibility. The party was registrered on 08.06.2020 and have now collected 10 012 signatures. In order to become eligible for the general election, you need to collect 20 182 signatures, and a signature cannot be more than 18 months old. So this means 1 121 signatures a month with a linear pace, and it seems like they have been a bit above that pace in recent months.

[Diouf]

Mai Villadsen, the new Red-Green leader, as expected topped the internal party vote of parliamentary candidates. Last year, she was only fifth in the annual vote, but after the party's parliamentary group chose her as leader in the spring, it seemed obvious that the party members would follow the lead. However, while all the previous Red-Green leaders have decided to run as the lead candidate in Copenhagen, Villadsen has instead decided to run as the lead candidate in Eastern Jutland. Villadsen herself is from Kibæk in Central Jutland, and says that this is one step in broadening the party's appeal and show that it's not just a party for people in Copenhagen. Victoria Velasquez, second in the party vote, preferred to keep her constituency of Funen, so the Red-Green lead candidate in Copenhagen will instead be third-placed Rosa Lund.

[Diouf]

The Social Democrats are now below 30% in the Politiologi.dk polling average for the first time since covid-19 emerged. Recent polls from Epinion and Megafon had them at 28.6% and 27.3%, while they are down to 31.0% in the latest weekly Voxmeter poll. We have to see whether the trend continues, but it does look like the covid boost is (finally) starting to fade. On top of that, the government has had some difficult cases. Firstly, the government after a long push from its support parties, decided to take home three mothers and 14 children from the ISIS prisoner camps in the Kurdish-controlled Syria. Then the government proposed locating a deportation center on Langeland. The center should host the 130 foreigners, who had committed crimes bad enough for them to be sentenced to deportation. Most of them won't travel to their home countries and can't be forced to, so stay in Denmark after their sentences. They can move freely and only have to report in the center once a day. Currently, they are located in Central Jutland, but a majority in parliament had promised to move them after the crime and danger they caused in the area. The Blue Bloc parties of course had made an agreement to locate them on an uninhabited island next to Møn (although with frequent ferry to the mainland to live up to human rights). However, the new majority after 2019 abolished that agreement. But when the government proposed putting in on Langeland instead, the local population rose up loudly in opposition. Additionally, this is the only municipality with a SPP mayor. So after days of pressure, SPP relented and supported the Blue Bloc in opposition to putting the center in Langeland. So now it instead seems like the criminals will stay in Central Jutland, and the government ended up looking like fools.

Also notable in the polling average is that the Christian Democrats are now above the threshold. Epinion and Megafon had them at 2.2% and 2.4% respectively, while Voxmeter had them at 1.8%. It should be noted that the party is now a party equal in stature to the Alternative in that it is represented in parliament and eligible to run in the next election. Therefore the party can participate in Question time for the PM, speak before independents in Parliament and are invited to more negotiations on policies. So while MP Jens Rohde is the only one who can do the parliamentary business, it also means more attention for the party leader Isabella Arendt, who is now working in parliament on a daily basis.

[Diouf]

Moderate Hero



Today in his Constitution Day speech, Lars Løkke announced that his new party will get the name Moderaterne (the Moderates). However, Løkke also said that he did not expect to officially form the party until after the local and regional elections in November, unless Mette Frederiksen before that decided to call an early election.

[Diouf]

Next generation in DPP feud over the party's future

Leaked mails from the DPPs executive committee has revealed a quite fundamental split in the battle of the crisis-ridden party's future. Executive committee member, and previously prominent MP, Martin Henriksen had tweeted disparaging comments at the Prime Minister after she received her covid-19 vaccination by a woman with a headscarf: "You can always count on the Social Democrats to promote more islam. Things are going so well with the amount we already have...". This infuriated another executive committee member, MEP Peter Kofod, who request a point for the next meeting about manners on social media, and wrote:"She was invited for vaccination and had her picture taken, which is a good thing as it will increase confidence in vaccines. That she was randomly vaccinated by a woman with a headscarf, is what it is. We will all survive that, despite not liking the symbol. We can have a tough immigration policy and not see everything as a problem." Kofod also brought up Henriksen's criticism of a named employee in the Immigration Agency who has double citizenship. Kofod ended with: "Just because others are getting closer to our political views, we do not have to move further right or jump on all non-cases. We have to show more confidence". Kofod was backed up by his close ally Anders Vistisen, but Henriksen made a tough counter-attack, calling it an attempt to curb his freedom of speech and that it was "the most crazy thing to happen in my 20 years in the party". Henriksen also accused Kofod and Vistisen of making the intervention in an attempt to take over power in the party.

[Diouf]

Vegan Party leader resigns

Today, the leader of the Vegan Party, Henrik Vindfeldt, resigned from his role. Tomorrow the party will have its party conference, and a new leader will be elected. He is resigning for personal reasons. Last december he received a 30 days suspended sentence for breaking into a farm. The party still hasn't made a big showing in the polls. In the most recent polls they are between 0,2-0,8%.

[Diouf]

The weekly poll from Voxmeter.
They now also have the Social Democrats below 30%, but the most interesting aspect is the Other vote. A whole 3.0% has said Other in this poll, which is the highest since the spring of 2007 before Ny Alliance became eligible. The question of course is who they want to vote for. Løkke got a new round of attention to his project, so it could be potential Moderate voters. Another likely option is Independent Green supporters. In the last month, the party has collected more than 3 000 signatures, and are now at a total of 13 334. So it's starting to look very likely they will become eligible. So we could end up with three small green-ish parties fighting to reach the threshold. Finally, I guess the poll could have randomly picked up a Riskær Pedersen or Paludan supporter, but their new parties are far away from the threshold (5 283 and 3 987 respectively), and have seen little movements for weeks.

https://twitter.com/Annamidtgaard/status/1404325152817569795

[Diouf]

Ulla Koch was elected the new leader of the Vegan Party. She has worked for around 20 years with creating education materials for dislexic persons and immigrants with Danish as a second language, but last year decided to start studying theology at the University of Copenhagen. She has been active in the party since its start in late 2018. The party hasn't yet managed to make any breakthrough in the media or in polls. I'm not sure exactly how the green-ish voters overlap between them, the Alternative and the Independent Greens, but it can't be good news that the latter seems like it could become eligible as well.

[Diouf]

The former leader of the Social Liberals, Morten Østergaard, who has been on leave since leaving the leadership position in the fall of 2020 after wide-scale revelations of sexual harrassment, has now resigned his seat in parliament. He will become a climate advisor for a software company. His substitute, Susan Kronborg, a lawyer who was worked the past 25 years for the tax authorities, will now become a permanent MP. Østergaard as leader of the party won 17 687 personal votes in the 2019 election, the 17th highest in the country. He has been a MP since 2005. Already in 2007, he became deputy leader of the party. After the 2011 election, he became Minister of Higher Education and Research, was later promoted to Minister of Taxation. And in 2014 when Margrethe Vestager went to Brussels, he took over her two roles as Social Liberal leader and Minister of Economy and the Interior.

[Diouf]

All parties in parliament agreed on an infrastructure plan until 2035. In the plan, the parties have chosen a number of major projects for the next 14 years. Previous political deals already meant projects for 60 bln. kr. in the 2022-2035 period, and the parties in this plan agreed projects for an additional 106 bln. kr. Not all parties agreed on all projects in the plan, but it was decided to unite the projects in one common plan, where the parties will meet a number of times during this time period to take stock of the plan's progress. Of the new projects, 52 bln are investments in roads, 45 bln in rail and 9 bln others.
 
Of the biggest road projects, one could name a new highway in Central Jutland around Viborg, along the so-called "army road" which in previous centuries was the main transport line, an expansion of the Eastern Jutland highway, continuation of the Northern Zealand highway, as well as a tunnel towards the expanding harbour area in Aarhus and a third road across the Limfjord in Aalborg. In terms of rail, the goal is still the so-called "hour model" where train travel between the big cities should only be an hour (Copenhagen -> Odense -> Esbjerg or Aarhus + Aarhus - > Aalborg). The plan is also to electrify the whole railway net. Additionally, there will be a new railway between Aarhus and Silkeborg as well as a number of S-trains in & around Copenhagen being "metrofied" with driverless trains with higher speed.

https://twitter.com/Finansmin/status/1409423626688942080