Four more years of Danish centre-right government

14 novembre 2007 | Par Filip ENGEL

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Business as usual in Denmark

They did it again. After a sweeping victory in the 2001 elections, which was repeated in 2005, the Danish centre right minority government, comprised of The Liberals (Venstre) and The Conservatives (De Konservative) won their third consecutive election Tuesday, 14 November. The result was closer than in 2005 but still revealed a relatively comfortable right-wing majority.

That Denmark would see another four years of right-wing government was clear early on election day, when the first exit polls confirmed the opinion polls of the last three weeks. They all gave the right-wing block, comprising the two minority government parties, the eurosceptical right-wing Danish People’s Party and the new kid on the block, the Liberals of New Alliance, a majority of 94 out of 179 mandates in the Danish parliament, The Folketing.

Late in the evening the numbers really started adding up for the government, revealing that the two government parties and the Danish People’s Party, the minority governments loyal parliamentary support throughout the last 6 years, could summon 89 mandates. And with a little help from the one right-wing mandate out of the four North-Atlantic mandates from Greenland and the Faeroe Islands, Edmund Joensen from centre-right Sambandspartiet on the Faeroe Island, the case was clear. Contrary to the predictions of most opinion polls, the government could summon the magical 90 mandates of parliamentary support to remain in power without having to include the 5 mandates of New Alliance.

New Alliance

The story of New Alliance is in many ways the story of the Danish elections year 2007. New Alliance was founded only a half year ago by Danish MEPs Gitte Seeberg (The Conservatives/EPP), Anders Samuelsen (The Danish Social-Liberal Party/ALDE) and Danish MP for the Social-Liberals Naser Khader and immediately took the floor as a party with a centre-right politcal program and an outspoken ambition to remove the Liberal-conservative government from the influence of the nationalists of the Danish People’s Party.

But whereas the Danish People’s Party along with the other parties were ready for elections, the last weeks revealed that New Alliance was not. It came as a surprise to many when Mr. Fogh Rasmussen three weeks ago chose to call for elections. The analysis of the PM and his cabinet, seemed to be that it was either now or in late 2008/early 2009 that elections could take place. The upcoming months into 2008 are destined to become the battleground of hard wage-negotiations between trade unions and the employer’s organisations, most likely turning out to be some of the hardest negotiations in many years, due to the booming Danish economy, which has led Danish trade unions to demand substantial pay-raises. A governmental decree, fixing the annual increase in salaries, is therefore the likely outcome of the conflict, which inevitably will harm Mr. Fogh Ramussen’s effort to keep the Liberals on a moderate centre-right track as a party with a social profile. And the perspective of a heated debate on the EU Reform Treaty in 2008, seems to have made the choice easy for the Danish PM. 

Consequently, after being welcomed on the Danish political scene with astonishing mandates in the polls in the months preceding the elections, New Alliance led a clumsy and unprepared campaign during which Mr. Khader proved especially at unease in the new role as party leader. In this way, in a by now already notorious televised tête-a-tête with the rival for Mr. Fogh Ramussen’s attention, Pia Kjærsgaard, the successful leader of the Danish People’s Party, Mr. Khader failed to answer the most simple questions on his party’s tax-reform policy. The voters were left unimpressed and fled the sinking ship, with the same speed as they had boarded the new vessel in the Danish political sea. On election day the ambitious party ended at disappointing 2,8% of the votes, barely making it passed the 2% threshold.

The story of the rise and the downfall of Mr. Khader’s party might seem insignificant in the eye of the beholder as the size of New Alliance primarily seems to be a question of the relative distribution of the votes internally in the right-wing block. But it is not. Had we seen a result more in tune with what the opinion pools predicted the government would have been dependent on New Alliance for its parliamentary majority and would consequently have been forced to work intimately with New Alliance and the Danish People’s Party instead of just relying on the votes of the later, which has been the standard operating procedure throughout the last 6 years.

Whereas the Danish Peoples Party can most easily be described as a nationalistic ‘hard on immigration and asylum’ party with a strong touch of traditional social-democratic welfare-policy, New Alliance is the exact opposite and calls for reforms of the Danish welfare- and tax-system and a more human face to the asylum-policy. In short, the two parties are explicitly opposed on the two areas that have set the agenda for Danish politics in the last decade. And throughout the last three weeks the entertainment has been guaranteed, when Mr. Khader and Mrs. Kjærsgaard have crossed swords in deadly wordings over the orientation of Mr. Fogh Rasmussen’s assumed post-election government, while usually cool, calm and collected Mr. Fogh Rasmussen suddenly has looked unusually worried with the prospect of having to govern with the mandates of both parties.

The chances of the opposition

Meanwhile the opposition, comprising the Red-Green Coalition, the Socialists, the Social-Liberals and the Social-Democrats were thrilled. The opposition, lead by former MEP and Social-Democrat Helle Thorning-Smith, naturally gave the impression that they were going to win. But among the top-dogs of the opposition leaders the analysis has been all along that the real showdown is to take place in the next elections. The opposition, and their relatively inexperienced leaders, picked up the pieces in the 2005 elections after what was so dramatically lost in 2001, but is still building their political project that is to challenge the centre-right majority.

The analysis of the opposition was, and probably rightly so, that a centre-right government based on New Alliance and the Danish People’s Party would ware itself down swiftly in internal quarrelling and fights, wherefore new elections would be little more than one or two years away, where a worn-down Anders Fogh Rasmussen would be easier to beat. With the fall of New Alliance and the reliable votes of the Danish People’s Party plus the mandate from the Faeroe Island to fall back on in the search of the 90 mandates, the government is now secured a more stable political climate than what the opposition had expected although it remains to be seen exactly how stable the narrow majority turns out to be.

What is more, despite all political parties of the opposition solemnly declaring on the election night that they would continue their hard work towards the next elections, the opposition must be left with a feeling of unease. Most commentators agree that the opposition has led a focused and professional campaign. The problem for the opposition is that the voters did not seem to care. Sure, the Socialists doubled their votes from 6% in 2005 to 12% but the majority of the voters seem to have been picked up among the voters of the Social-Liberals, who were cut from down from 9% to 5% of the votes and from the Red-Green Alliance.

As for the party that incarnates the real battlefield between centre-left and centre-right, that of the Social-Democrats, it was left relatively unchanged at 25,5%, which means that few voters bothered to embark on the journey from the Liberals or the Danish People’s Party back to the Social-Democrats, which is necessary if the left is to return to power. Throughout their campaign the Social-Democrats tried to paint the picture of their party as the real defenders of the welfare state. The Danes want a good and strong welfare system but at the same time they do not want to see an increased tax-burden. But whereas Danish voters seem to have decided that taxes and welfare can be entrusted with the Liberals they are, for historical reasons, more sceptical about entrusting the overall tax-burden with the Social-Democrats and many Danes who are now voting for The Liberals or the Danish People’s Party, do not trust the left with the immigration-policy. The question the Social-Democrats are now asking themselves is what it takes to get the voters back ?

And the EU ?

As always the debate on Europe was impressively absent throughout the campaign. Just before Mr. Fogh Rasmussen called the elections the debate on a possible referendum on the Reform Treaty was high on the political agenda – pushed by the eurosceptical Red-Green Coalition and the Danish People’s Party. But as soon as the elections were called, the EU debate died a fast and painless death and was never again seen alive. Danish elections are always about Denmark and not the EU, which is still largely regarded as foreign policy. What remains to be seen now is how Mr. Fogh Rasmussen handles the Reform Treaty. With elections out of their way, he has one argument less for submitting the treaty to a public referendum. The question is if the political pressure for referendum turns out to be too strong.

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