Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen in Copenhagen, ahead of today's parliamentary elections. Photo / Mads Claus Rasmussen, Ritzau Scanpix, AFP
Danes vote today in general elections that opinion polls suggest will be close, with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen seen as the favourite after standing up to United States President Donald Trump over Greenland.
Frederiksen, a Social Democrat who has been in office since 2019, has been praised for her leadership after fending off Trump’s repeated demands to annex Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory he claims the US needs for national security reasons.
The row over the vast Arctic island has, however, not been central in the campaign, which has focused more on such issues as the cost of living, immigration and the environment.
Recent opinion polls credit the left-wing bloc with a slight lead over the right, but neither were seen garnering a majority in the 179-seat parliament.
“The future composition of the [coalition] government is very uncertain, but it is likely that we will end up with [Frederiksen] as head of government,” said Elisabet Svane, political analyst at Danish newspaper Politiken.
“People may not really like her, but they see her as the right leader,” she told AFP.
Frederiksen “is a unifying figure in a world full of insecurity, and Danes are quite anxious - there’s Greenland, Ukraine, [and mystery] drones” that flew over the Scandinavian country last year, Svane said.
In addition, “it’s hard to imagine a right-wing government because it would have to unite such a broad swathe, from the far right to the more centrist parties, which are not on very good terms with the far-right”, said Ole Waever, a political science professor at the University of Copenhagen.
Polling stations open at 8pm (NZT) and close at 8am tomorrow, when exit polls will be published, with final results expected around four hours later.
The four overseas seats held by Denmark’s two autonomous territories - two for Greenland and two for the Faroe Islands - could tip the balance if the election result is very close.
The centrist Moderate party, led by Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, a two-time former prime minister, could also prove decisive if things go down to the wire.
In Greenland’s capital Nuuk, the campaign has generated more interest than usual, with more than 20 candidates standing.
“I think this election will kind of show us the direction going forward,” said Juno Berthelsen, a member of Greenland’s local parliament and leader of the Naleraq party, which wants to cut ties with Denmark as soon as possible.
Several of the party’s members have met with the Trump Administration.
Greenland’s main political parties all want independence from Denmark, but Naleraq’s rivals favour a more measured process.
Greenland’s Business Minister Naaja Nathanielsen, a candidate for the left-wing IA party, said fear of the US had been central to the campaign in Greenland.
“Due to the fact that the US has shown such aggression, you would find a bigger interest in really trying to push the Greenlandic narrative in the Danish parliament,” she said.
In metropolitan Denmark, Greenland did not get much attention in the campaign.
“Greenland is part of Denmark and we need to take care of it, but it’s not something I think about when I go to vote,” 21-year-old voter Clemens Duval Thomsen told AFP.
In the wealthy nation of six million people, the campaign has instead focused on domestic issues, including inflation, the welfare state and high nitrate levels in water from agriculture.
In a country where the far-right has heavily influenced policy since the late 1990s, immigration has also been a hot topic, with the Social Democrats advocating even tighter regulations.
The far-right Danish People’s Party, which slumped in the 2022 election but has seen an upswing in opinion polls, is in favour of ending permanent residence permits.
Frederiksen has also defended as “fair” a proposal to deny non-essential healthcare to people of foreign origin who threaten medical personnel.
“It has to be this way: in addition to the formal punishment in the judicial system, we’re saying, ‘You have no place here’,” she said.
Mette Frederiksen
Frederiksen embodies the revamped Social Democrats, committed to a hard line on migration to defend the country’s cherished welfare state.
The 48-year-old has been an MP since the age of 24 and took over as the leader of Denmark’s biggest political party in 2015 after the country’s first woman Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, stepped down after an election loss.
Frederiksen first headed a minority government made up exclusively of Social Democrats from 2019 to 2022.
Initially, she was hailed for the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic but ran into trouble with what became known as the “mink crisis” - a government-ordered cull of roughly 17 million minks over health concerns that was ruled illegal.
Frederiksen has led a left-right coalition in her second term, adopting tougher migration policies to counter the rise of the far-right.
She has given solid support to Ukraine and squared off against US President Donald Trump over his bid to annex Greenland.
Hailing from a dyed-in-the-wool Social Democratic family, she is the daughter of a typographer and a pre-school teacher.
Troels Lund Poulsen
Frederiksen had barely called the election at the end of February when Lund Poulsen, 49, threw his hat into the ring.
The Venstre leader has spent four years working alongside Frederiksen, first as Economy Minister before moving to Defence.
Now, he wants to lead a right-wing coalition to power, saying he fears a left-wing coalition led by the current Prime Minister would “swamp Danes and our businesses with new, high taxes”.
Unlike Frederiksen, Lund Poulsen is not inclined to share his life on social media. While he has years of experience in several cabinets, few expected the current Deputy Prime Minister to be a candidate for the top job, according to Danish media.
He has acknowledged that he even considered withdrawing from political life in 2022, saying he was exhausted.
Described as an uncompromising Defence Minister, he has overseen the beginning of Denmark’s rearmament in response to a perceived threat from Russia and tensions over Greenland.
Lars Lokke Rasmussen
Having already served as Prime Minister twice, Lokke, as he is widely known, seems at home in the spotlight.
He recently posted a photo of himself on Instagram with a goat, which commentators interpreted as his desire to proclaim himself the “GOAT” (Greatest Of All Time).
A seasoned Foreign Minister, Lokke was on the front line in recent negotiations after Trump insisted the US needed to take control of Greenland.
Born in central Denmark to a stay-at-home mother and a father who was an accountant, he trained to be a lawyer before entering parliament in 1994.
He was a member of Venstre for 40 years but left the party in 2021 to create the Moderates party, which then managed to become part of Frederiksen’s government after their first election campaign in 2022.
A skilful politician, he has left everyone guessing as to whether he really wants to be PM. The veteran has weathered many a political storm, including a scandal over his use of party funds to buy expensive suits.
-Agence France-Presse