Current prime minister Mette Frederiksen is in a strong position to stay in her job after as the ‘red bloc’ traditionally led by her Social Democratic party, was able to scrape together a hairline, one-seat majority in parliament with 90 of the 179 mandates, or seats, on Tuesday night.
It was the North Atlantic mandates that ultimately pushed the red bloc over the edge — one of the Faroe Islands’ two seats and both of Greenland’s.
Frederiksen’s own party returned a strong performance, taking a 27.5 percent vote share and gaining two seats to take its total to 50. It is the best election result for the Social Democrats for 20 years and makes them comfortably the largest party.
READ ALSO: Denmark’s red bloc takes knife-edge victory
Although Frederiksen now looks in a position to secure enough backing from the left to form a government, she may still push through with her plan to attempt to form a government across the centre, giving centre-right parties a place in power.
What happens next?
At 11 am, PM Frederiksen will meet with Queen Margrethe to formally tender the current government’s resignation and recommend a dronningerunde or “Queen’s round.”
Each party head must pay a visit to the queen at Amalienborg to ceremonially tell the queen their pick for the “Queen’s investigator” to form a new government. That title, though not necessarily PM, will almost certainly go to Frederiksen.
Frederiksen has reiterated her desire for a broad centrist government, suggesting she’ll be courting blue bloc parties in the coming days.
In comments reported by broadcaster DR, Frederiksen said “it is certain there is no longer a majority behind the government in its current form,” meaning a minority government consisting only of the Social Democrats.
“The Social Democrats campaigned on the basis of a broad government [centre coalition, ed.]. If a majority of parties nominate me as Queen’s investigator, I will see whether this is possible,” she said.
The left wing Red Green Alliance and centre-left Socialist People’s Party (SF) have already stated that they oppose a centre coalition, calling for Frederiksen to form a centre-left government based on the parties that will nominate her to lead the Queen’s round.
What is certain is that Frederiksen is now in the driving seat in upcoming talks to form a government.
Despite his newly-formed party grabbing 16 seats, Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s position has been significantly depleted at the last moment.
As leader of the centrist Moderates, which he founded only last year, Rasmussen was expected to wake up a kingmaker — exit polls had suggested neither bloc would be able to reach a majority without the support of Rasmussen and the Moderates.
With the red bloc’s 90 seats, however, Rasmussen is left in a much weaker position than the exit polls projected.
Such was the last-minute nature of the red bloc majority, Rasmussen was still written up as the “breakout king” (udbryderkongen) on newspaper Politiken’s cover on Wednesday morning, while tabloid Ekstra Bladet described him as “the battering man” (smadremanden).
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