Danish Elections and Politics

[Diouf]

Result of the School elections today (ca. 15-16 year olds)

Liberal Alliance 30.15%
Social Democrats 15.99%
Liberals 9.81%
Social Liberals 8.72%
Conservatives 8.03%
Red-Green Alliance 6.97%
SPP 5.6%
DPP 5.18%
Moderates 4.69%
Denmark Democrats 3.06%
Alternative 1.8%

A dominant result for Liberal Alliance which also means that the combined traditional Blue Bloc parties carry the day with 56%. Liberal Alliance is even more dominant here than among young voters, where the most recent Epinion poll had them on 20.5% among 18-34 year-olds. Their popular young leader Alex Vanopslagh and messages of freedom, entrepreunership, personal responsibility are proving very popular among young voters.

Social Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives all hold up better than they do among 18-34 year old voters. Perhaps a combination of some more established organizational strength in these parties plus these young voters maybe more tend to follow their parents' vote, whereas they are a bit more independent a few years later.

Only a combined 14.37% for the three parties left of the Social Democrats, much worse than among 18-34 year's old. Not a good sign for these parties. The Alternative result in particular seems horrible with a generation that's supposed to care a lot about climate change. Probably they have very little organization.

Moderates and Denmark Democrats also a bit below what they get among young voters, so probably don't have a full blown youth organzation everywhere yet.

[Diouf]

More good news for Liberal Alliance as a new poll by Epinion for Altinget/DR has them as the second biggest party on 14.6% The party is now even clearer the favourite among 18-24 year old with 23.5% of the votes. They are also the biggest party among men with 19.8%, just ahead of the Social Democrats on 18.8%. Vanopslagh's approval rating is +6.

The Alternative here down at 1.8% so below the threshold, and at the level, where they might not even get a constituency seat in Copenhagen. Their leader Franciska Rosenkilde has been ill for several weeks, but she has not reported sick, so her back-up has not been called in and it doesn't seem like there is any temporary leader either. So the party is almost completely silent.

In the Altinget analysis, there are a few more details which are not published yet. Mette Frederiksen has improved her approval rate from -20 to -7 since the last poll, which might be why Social Democrats have gone from 19.6% to 21.6%. Perhaps because she received a lot of positive attention for the royal events and for presenting the government's new elderly policy.
Lars Løkke is at -13%, the Moderates are down to 5.5%.
Troels Lund Poulsen is at =, the Liberals are at 9.4%.
Messerschmidt is at -34, and DPP has barely picked up anything despite New Right no longer being on the ballot.

Among voters of Blue Bloc parties (excluding Liberals), Alex Vanopslagh is the preferred PM on 29% with Inger Støjberg on 21%. Only 3% prefer Liberal leader Troels Lund Poulsen.

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/meningsmaalinger
https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/aarets-foerste-meningsmaaling-vermund-har-styrket-la

[Flyersfan232]

Result of the School elections today (ca. 15-16 year olds)

Liberal Alliance 30.15%
Social Democrats 15.99%
Liberals 9.81%
Social Liberals 8.72%
Conservatives 8.03%
Red-Green Alliance 6.97%
SPP 5.6%
DPP 5.18%
Moderates 4.69%
Denmark Democrats 3.06%
Alternative 1.8%

A dominant result for Liberal Alliance which also means that the combined traditional Blue Bloc parties carry the day with 56%. Liberal Alliance is even more dominant here than among young voters, where the most recent Epinion poll had them on 20.5% among 18-34 year-olds. Their popular young leader Alex Vanopslagh and messages of freedom, entrepreunership, personal responsibility are proving very popular among young voters.

Social Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives all hold up better than they do among 18-34 year old voters. Perhaps a combination of some more established organizational strength in these parties plus these young voters maybe more tend to follow their parents' vote, whereas they are a bit more independent a few years later.

Only a combined 14.37% for the three parties left of the Social Democrats, much worse than among 18-34 year's old. Not a good sign for these parties. The Alternative result in particular seems horrible with a generation that's supposed to care a lot about climate change. Probably they have very little organization.

Moderates and Denmark Democrats also a bit below what they get among young voters, so probably don't have a full blown youth organzation everywhere yet.

the irony of this was that this was on the day the Crown prince a 18 year old high schooler was acting head of state while his father was in poland he even signed a bill too!

[Diouf]

The independent ex-Moderate MP Mike Fonseca is now returning to parliament after his illness after the revelation of him being in a relationship with a 15-year old girl. This means his Moderate stand-in MP leaves parliament, and Fonseca returns as an Independent.

This means the parliamentary situation on Danish issues is now:

Governing majority - 88 seats
Social Democrats 50 seats
Liberals 23
Moderates 14
Jon Stephensen

Sympathetic towards the government (probably won't make it fall, but won't support it in all cases) - 8 seats
Social Liberals 7
Mike Fonseca

Opposition - 79
SPP 15
Liberal Alliance 15
Denmark Democrats 14
Conservatives 10
Red-Green Alliance 9
DPP 7
Alternative 5
Lars Boje Mathiesen
Theresa Scavenius
Kim Edberg Andersen
Peter Seier Christensen

So the government retains a slim 88-87 majority on Danish issues.

When looking in terms of the whole parliament, then the four North Atlantic seats support the government. The two Faroese MPs are quite safe with their parties being sister parties to Social Democrats and Liberals. The Greenlandic Siumut are probably also safe as a Social Democratic sister party, but they seem to have taken a more nationalistic turn, so if some big case regarding Greenland emerges, there might be some tentions. Finally IA is officially a sister party of SPP, but so far the mentions from Aaja Chemnitz has been that she supports the government, despite SPP being in opposition. So while the majority on Danish parliamentary issues is very narrow, there is a far way to the government losing a vote of no confidence.

The Conservative parliamentary group leader Mai Mercado has resigned her position. It sounds like the party's spokesperson on business, Mona Juul, is the favourite to take over the job. She is also increasingly rumoured as a likely leader when Søren Pape at some point finally resigns. So far, the thinking had been that it had to be one of the three most experienced and well-known MPs, Rasmus Jarlov, Mai Mercado or Mette Abildgaard, replacing Pape, but it seems like Juul is now becoming a strong candidate. Her business experience and her friendly, uniting style is regarded very well among signficant parts of the party.

[Diouf]

Important DPP player goes Moderate

Rene Christensen, who was a DPP MP from 2008-2022, has moved to the Moderates. He says that the DPP is "moving away from where the power lays". He laments the fact that the party has turned up the dial on the rhetoric: "Things are communicated on social media with a lot of edge. That isn't my style. It might work for some voters. But politics is not just about collecting voters. It's about getting influence. You do that by being close to the center of power". When asked whether the move to the Moderates isn't a big step, he says that his big focus is financial policies and rural areas, and that he believes in the party's policies on these areas. He said that he is "very liberal in regards to how people dress" and never agreed with the DPP move towards favouring an EU exit, and that the question was even discussed in the party before being announced.

Christensen was a key player nationally, particularly under Thulelsen Dahl's reign. He was financial spokesperson from 2013-22, i.e. Thulelsen Dahl's previous position where you represent the party in budget negotiations. He was even deputy leader under Morten Messerschmidt for some months in 2022 and 2023, but left the position quickly. Officially to focus on his new job outside parliament as head of the Danish Fish Farm Association, but it seems likely that the two had big disagreements about where the party should go. Locally, he has also been an important figure in Guldborgsund municipality, and was long seen as the party's best shot at getting a mayor. In 2017, the party peaked locally at 23.8% and 7 seats, with Christensen himself getting 6 457 votes out of the 36 044 votes cast. However, it wasn't enough for him to take the mayoralty from a popular local list mayor. In 2021 when the party's decline had well started, he still achieved an impressive 19.0% result for the DPP.

His move also caused the media to look a bit further into the way the 53-year old has handled the relationsship with his 30-year old girlfriend Cecilie Winther Kristensen. She worked for the married Christensen in parliament and in his role as deputy leader. And then when Christensen became head of the Fish Farm Association, she was shortly after hired as Head of Press in the Association.
Winther Kristensen has also been a candidate for DPP at several elections. In the 2022 general election, she received 331 personal votes in the Copenhagen Environs constituency. While it might not seem like a lot, it was it the constituency where party leader Morten Messerschmidt ran and received most of the party's votes. So she got more votes than all other DPP candidates, and is therefore first in line to replace Messerschmidt in parliament. She has announced that she has joined the Moderates himself.

Rene Christensen himself got a decent 4 143 personal votes in the 2022 general election. But the party only ended up with one seat in the large Zealand constituency. And party founder and long-time leader Pia Kjærsgaard beat him with 6 084 personal votes. The 76-year old Kjærsgaard seems in good health, but Christensen would be first in line to replace her. Kjærsgaard has just celebrated her being a MP for 40 years. She is the most experienced of all current MPs, and only 10 MPs in history have served for longer than her.

[Diouf]

Preferred PM, poll. Epinion for DR and Altinget.

Mette Frederiksen 19%
Alex Vanopslagh 10%
Lars Løkke Rasmussen 9%
Pia Olsen Dyhr 9%
Inger Støjberg 9%
Someone else 4%
Troels Lund Poulsen 4%
Pelle Dragsted 3%
Søren Pape Poulsen 3%
Morten Messerschmidt 2%
Franciska Rosenkilde 1%
Martin Lidegaard 1%
Don't know 28%


So no big appetite for Lund Poulsen as PM yet. Løkke continues to score quite high as competent and potential PM, even with his party fading somewhat. Vanopslagh the most popular alternative but only just, and certainly not with a lot of broad support yet. Another horrible poll for Pape, and it should be only a question of when he is replaced.

[Diouf]

The government will have to face its most divisive issue yet in the coming months as the negotiations about a carbon tax on the agricultural sector is about to start. The government's expert panel has proposed three different models for such a carbon tax, with the tax being 125 kr, 375 kr and 750 kr. per tonnes respectively in the three models.
The government is trying to defuse some of the political tensions around the issue by starting negotiations with interest groups, and hope a deal can be reached on a model there. And then such a deal with the interest groups would probably get quite broad support in parliament.

However, it already seems like there is quite a lot of distance between the interest groups and the parties in government. The Danish Society for Nature Conversation has already publicly recommended the most radical model with a 750 kr. tax. The deputy leader of the Danish Agriculture and Food Council today came out to say that the expert group was just a political contribution from one side, and that they had their own negotiations which could give some better (i.e. more lenient) models. They are both part of the negotiations along with the Danish Union of Metalworkers, the trade union in the food industry NNF, the Confederation of Danish Industry, the Association of Municipalities as well as the green think tank Concito.

Also the parties in government are already publicly disagreeing. The Moderates have said that the deal would have to live up to the ambitions stated in the government agreement, which most experts agree that only the 750 kr. model would do. Social Democrats are mostly staying quiet. The Liberals seem likely to face a significant backlash from their own mayors and members if they agree to a radical deal. The negotiations will be led by Liberal Minister of Economy Stephanie Lose, who is so far quite neutral in her answers. TV2 today asked 119 Liberal mayors and local association leaders. Of the 44 who answered, 32 said that all three models were too radical and would harm Danish agriculture so much that the party shouldn't agree a deal with any of them. Outside of government, the Denmark Democrats are fully against any carbon tax and have started campaigning heavily on it, while the usual Red Bloc parties are all pushing the Social Democrats to go for the most ambitious model, and are criticizing how slow progress on the climate issues are.

[Diouf]

Conservative leader Søren Pape Poulsen has died from a brain hemorrhage, age 52

[Diouf]

Pape's funeral will be this Saturday from the Cathedral in Viborg, which he was next door neighbour to.
It seems more and more likely that his replacement will be the 56-year old Mona Juul. Political spokesperson Mette Abildgaard has said she isn't pursuing the role due to her having two small children at home. Former parliamentary group leader Mai Mercado recently quit that post, also due to family commitments. And Rasmus Jarlov has been on sick leave since 7 January.

So the three most obvious candidates all seem out of the picture, which very much leaves Mona Juul as the likely new leader of the party.

There has been no statements yet on how and when a new leader will be chosen. Høje Taastrup mayor Michael Ziegler will deputize as party leader until further notice.

[Diouf]

Former Head of Communications for the Conservatives, Benny Damsgaard, has written an analysis of the likely new Conservative leader Mona Juul:

He rightly argues that the party for several years focused a lot on Pape himself, when he was riding high in popularity polls. After the defeat in the 2022 general election, the party tried to broaden the responsibility, so key actors like Mette Abildgaard, Mai Mercado and Rasmus Jarlov got more attention. But now it looks like none of them will become leader, and the quite unknown Mona Juul will take over instead.

He says it's quite unclear what direction the party will take under Juul's leadership. She only joined the party in 2018, and doesn't have a long background in politics. She has been a partner and director in a advertising company. She was elected already in 2019 as a MP, and has mostly been active on business and climate. She has attacked the government for being to slow to act on climate issues, while critics said she has almost acted as the spokesperson for the Danish Chamber of Commerce in her business portfolio. She has barely spoken on issues like law and order, defence, immigration and religion. Damsgaard notes that particularly those former profiles on the party left, Per Stig Møller and Connie Hedegaard, has praised Juul highly, so they seem like they have an expectation that she will lead the party in their direction. He illustrates this by mentioning how Pape had pictures of Thatcher on his wall, while Juul has a big painting of a woman pleasing herself.

https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/benny-damsgaard-mona-juul-bliver-ny-leder-af-k-ingen-ved-dog-reelt-hvad-hun-vil-med-partiet

[Diouf]

Mona Juul today become the official leader of the Conservatives in parliament. The party announced its plan to have an extraordinary congress soon, where the whole party will chose their new leader. The whole board and parliamentary group supports Mona Juul, and it's seems unlikely there will be any serious opposition, if any at all.

https://twitter.com/noa_redington/status/1767876836912967957

[Jens]

Venstre MP Mads Fuglede has left the party and joined Danmarksdemokraterne, which means that the government no longer has a majority on its own. It will not tricker an election, because there is no majority against the government, but it will significantly weaken the power of the 3-party government.

Fuglede has been a long time supporter of Inger Støjberg and is also vey much against any CO2-tax, so it isn't that much of a surprice.

Kim Edberg Andersen has also joined Danmarksdemokraterne, chosing the weirdest day to do it, because nobody cares because of Fuglede - but that just shows that Edberg doesn't really know what he is doing...

Danmarksdemokraterne is now the 3th largest party in the parliament, surpassing SF and Moderaterne.

[Diouf]

Fuglede also mentions the Quran law, the abolition of a holiday, and the party's support for a later abortions as issues where he disagreed with his party.

Updated parliamentary situation on domestic Danish issues below.
On confidence issues, the four North Atlantic seats should all back the government, so there's no trouble there. There probably won't be a confidence vote, but it would be nice, just to see how Fonseca and the Social Liberals will vote.

Governing majority - 87 seats
Social Democrats 50 seats
Liberals 22
Moderates 14
Jon Stephensen

Sympathetic towards the government (probably won't make it fall, but won't support it in all cases) - 8 seats
Social Liberals 7
Mike Fonseca

Opposition - 80
Denmark Democrats 16
SPP 15
Liberal Alliance 15
Conservatives 10
Red-Green Alliance 9
DPP 7
Alternative 5
Lars Boje Mathiesen
Theresa Scavenius
Peter Seier Christensen

[Diouf]

The government has agreed a new school reform with Liberal Alliance, Conservatives, Social Liberals and DPP.
The deal aims to decentralize some of the decision-making about the content of the education as the number of national learning goals are cut down from 1 081 to 215. The deal is also rolling back some of the elements of the quite disliked school reform of 2014. That previous reform introduced the so-called 'full-day school' with longer school days, where there were homework cafes etc in order to create a bigger equality by reducing the role of whether your parents could help you or not. Now school days for the youngest pupils are reduced in length, the hard target of 45 min movement a day is scrapped, the mandatory homework cafes are removed and the older pupils will be able to have more choice about selective courses or choosing junior apprenticeships at companies.

The deal also includes invesments in more physical books to cut down on the hours of screen time in classes as well as funds to improve the quality of worn-down schools. Understanding of technology is introduced as a new selective course for older pupils, and it will be a theme in other standard courses for younger pupils. School boards will get more power, more funds to get educated, and it will be possible for local companies and associations to have representatives on the board. School boards will  be able to introduce grades in 6th and 7th grade if they wish.
The number of exams are reduced from 8 to 6, there will be special investments to improve those with the biggest difficulties in Danish and Math, and all pupils will have five days of mini apprenticeships in local companies in 7, 8 or 9th grade.


https://twitter.com/AndersRegnar/status/1770098143037689868

[MaxQue]

The government has agreed a new school reform with Liberal Alliance, Conservatives, Social Liberals and DPP.
The deal aims to decentralize some of the decision-making about the content of the education as the number of national learning goals are cut down from 1 081 to 215. The deal is also rolling back some of the elements of the quite disliked school reform of 2014. That previous reform introduced the so-called 'full-day school' with longer school days, where there were homework cafes etc in order to create a bigger equality by reducing the role of whether your parents could help you or not. Now school days for the youngest pupils are reduced in length, the hard target of 45 min movement a day is scrapped, the mandatory homework cafes are removed and the older pupils will be able to have more choice about selective courses or choosing junior apprenticeships at companies.

The deal also includes invesments in more physical books to cut down on the hours of screen time in classes as well as funds to improve the quality of worn-down schools. Understanding of technology is introduced as a new selective course for older pupils, and it will be a theme in other standard courses for younger pupils. School boards will get more power, more funds to get educated, and it will be possible for local companies and associations to have representatives on the board. School boards will  be able to introduce grades in 6th and 7th grade if they wish.
The number of exams are reduced from 8 to 6, there will be special investments to improve those with the biggest difficulties in Danish and Math, and all pupils will have five days of mini apprenticeships in local companies in 7, 8 or 9th grade.


https://twitter.com/AndersRegnar/status/1770098143037689868

Shameful from a so-called left wing to support student slavery.

[Diouf]

New Right had its extraordinary party congress yesterday. Since most of the people in favour of dissolving the party, had already left it, there was little appetite for the proposal to disband the party. 172 party delegates voted for the party to continue, 10 voted against and three blank.¨

Afterwards there was an election for new party leader. And the result was as clear. Martin Henriksen, who was a MP for DPP from 2005-2019, received 169 votes, while three voted for Daniel Fischer.
Henriksen lost the DPP leadership election to Morten Messerschmidt in January 2022, and left the party shortly after. He joined New Right in 2023, and was supposed to be their lead candidate for the EP elections. But after Vermund dissolved the parliamentary group, the party is no longer eligible to run in the EP elections. Instead Henriksen has focused on becoming the party's new leader.

For the New Right it remains crucial whether MP Peter Seier Christensen will return from his illness, and decide to represent the party in parliament. This would make the party eligible for the next general election, and therefore boost the attention the party would get. Otherwise, they will have to collect the slightly more than 20.000 signatures in order to become eligible. Seier Christensen has been ill for most of the term with cancer and stress, and hasn't made any public comments.

[Diouf]

New elderly care reform with more influence for citizens and relatives

The government has concluded a deal with Denmark Democrats, SPP, Liberal Alliance, Conservatives and Social Liberals to reform the elderly care structure. The key target in the agreed changes is to give the elderly and their relatives more self-determination about the care they receive. Currently most elderly care is awarded quite strictly according to different paragraphs; i.e. you get this amount of time for cleaning help, this amount of time for help with personal hygeine etc. In the new reform, the parties have agreed that it will change to a system of "united care", where the citizen will be awarded a package of a certain amount of time, and then the frontline employee, the citizen and the relative will together decide what the time is best spent on.

Citizens will be able to choose between municipal care and a private operator. But all operators must now have the ability to deliver all types of care. So whereas currently a citizen might have chosen a private operator for cleaning, and the municipal care for hygeine, it will now be one operator with responsibility for the whole package. This means the private operators can now go together in consorties where e.g. a private cleaning company and a private care giver join together with common care administrators.

The deal also adds a billion kr. to the eldery care a year. Some of the funds will be used for implementing more team-like structures in the municipal elderly care, so the elderly will have a set number of people delivering the care, and not potentialy many different persons.

The deal also means a reduction in the number of external oversights with the elderly care, as it's one of the things which have been frequently mentioned as increasing bureaucracy. Plus the fact that different oversight authorities can have opposite viewpoints; i.e. the fire authority wanting to remove furniture, while the elderly care authority wants homely and cozy environments for the citizens.

Finally, the deal aims to ensure more freedom in how elderly care centres are run. The deal includes better conditions for loans to those aiming to establish private elderly care centres. It also introduces a new possibility for municipalities to introduce locally governed eldery care centres, which, while owned by the municipality, are run by a board with representatives from relatives and local society.


https://twitter.com/tv2newsdk/status/1781015132602355960

[Diouf]

The European Elections campaigns have started. And the biggest story so far is that of Moderate lead candidate Stine Bosse and the party's immigration policies. She said that the party wants to remove the EU opt-out on justice and migration, and for Denmark to adopt all parts of the new EU Migration and Asylum Pact, including the part on redistribuing refugees. She said that it would be fine to accept the 5.000 - 7.000 refugees a year, and that it "wouldn't rock the boat" in Denmark. Last year Denmark had 1.343 refugees through exisiting routes.

This caused a big uproar with severe criticism from the Blue opposition parties, but also very hard attacks from Social Democrat and Liberal representatives. Both other EP candidates but also MPs and ministers. Lars Løkke himself maybe wasn't too pleased, because then some hours later she was forced to retract most of it. She now said that Danish participation in such a redistribution deal will only happen at a much later point, once the EU's outer borders have been secured and the tough Danish migration policy is the EU standard. And by then participation in a redistribution mechanism would not mean many refugees to a Denmark, "likely a number closer to 0".

[Diouf]

Mona Juul today become the official leader of the Conservatives in parliament. The party announced its plan to have an extraordinary congress soon, where the whole party will chose their new leader. The whole board and parliamentary group supports Mona Juul, and it's seems unlikely there will be any serious opposition, if any at all.

Mona Juul was officially elected as new Conservative leader today. There were no other candidates.

https://twitter.com/KonservativeDK/status/1782011317865357374

[Diouf]

Boje is back in town (in August)

The independent MP Lars Boje Mathiesen has announced that he will launch a new party in August which will "have the courage to take the necessary confrontations with the political power system, which no longer works for the population, but mostly for their own interests". Boje Mathiesen was elected for the New Right, and was leader of the party for a month in early 2023 after Pernille Vermund's resignation. He was then thrown out of the party over disagreements about the size of his salary.

He received a great personal vote in 2022 with 11 150 personal votes. The interesting thing will be to see whether he has the necessary organizational skills and the ability to collect enough signatures to run, and to keep a party together. So far he hasn't announced any other policies than those of lower salaries for MP, and a promise that his party will have the same rotation principle as the Red-Green Alliance and that all candidates will have worked for at least 10 years outside of politics.

It will be quite consequential for the right wing, whether Boje's new party and his previous party manage to become eligible for the next general election. If both become eligible, they will likely compete for many of the same voters. Many of their policies will be similar, but New Right's focus will be massively on immigration, while Boje tends to have a bigger focus on "the elite" as a concept, both the Danish and organizations like WEF etc, as well as a very detailed focus on how much wasteful spending goes on in the public sector.