Danish government steps down to allow PM to negotiate after slim election win

Accustomed to leading minority governments, the Social Democrats -- the largest party in parliament with 50 of 179 seats -- now want to govern across the traditional left-right divide.

The prime minister presented her government's resignation in order "to enter into negotiations to form a broader government and that will probably take a while," political scientist Rune Stubager, a professor at Aarhus University, told AFP.

Frederiksen's left-wing bloc, which includes five parties plus three seats from the autonomous territories Greenland and the Faroe Islands, won a majority of 90 seats, compared to 73 for the right and far-right, and 16 for the centre.

The outgoing prime minister met Queen Margrethe to hand in her resignation at 11am, which formally set the ball rolling for her to start negotiations with other party leaders on the make-up of the new government, which is expected to take a few weeks.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at Amalienborg on Wednesday 2nd November 2022. Photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

Having led the Social Democrats to their best election outcome since 2001, gaining two seats and securing over 27 percent of the vote, Frederiksen enters the negotiations from a position of strength.

“Social democracy had its best election in over 20 years,” Frederiksen said in a speech to campaign supporters early Wednesday. “We are a party for all of Denmark,” she added.

However, producing the broad government that she wishes for, will be difficult.

"This is going to be very, very troublesome. Whether it can be done, we don't know, but we are trying everything we can", Frederiksen said on Wednesday.

Frederiksen encouraged the parties not to make ultimatums and to instead try to lean in to each other.

"If it is to be possible, it will require parties that have traditionally sat opposite each other to sit at the same table. If it is to be possible, it will require trust, time and compromise.

"There is no one here who will have all their wishes fulfilled. We wouldn't get that either, even if we all went into government with each other,"  Frederiksen said.

Broken dreams

Up until the final moments of the vote count, it appeared as though the left bloc would lose its majority, a scenario which would have made the newly formed centrist Moderates party kingmaker.

But Frederiksen's photo-finish win scuppered the hopes of former two-time prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who founded the Moderates just months earlier.

The party won more than nine percent of votes and Lokke Rasmussen insisted he wanted to be "the bridge" between the left and right.

"The dream lasted only a couple of hours," daily Jyllands-Posten concluded. "Now, in theory, Mette can do without Lars Lokke," the newspaper added.

Despite this, the Moderates "will be part of these negotiations" and could even be able to secure cabinet posts if they are willing to "compromise sufficiently", Rune Stubager, a professor at Aarhus University, told AFP.

"But I don't think they will because they will then be vulnerable to critique from the right-wing parties," he said. Frederiksen "may then switch to a plan B, which I think is more realistic" -- a coalition government with various parties on the left.

In principle, the Social Democrats are not dependent on the blue bloc and have the option of forming a government with the red bloc alone.

However Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, leader of the biggest right-wing party Venstre, has not completely dismissed co-operations.

"I have a hard time seeing it. But I understand people's intuitive love for such a central government, because they like it when politicians cooperate. But we don't have to sit in government together to cooperate.

"You have to make an effort, and that's what I'm saying, I want to. I want to lean into this. I have entered politics to make a difference. The mandates we still have, however, must have the greatest possible weight", he said.

'Zero refugees'

While Frederiksen's government was largely hailed for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the election ended up being triggered by the "mink crisis".

The affair has embroiled Denmark since the government decided in November 2020 to cull the country's 15 million minks over fears of a mutated strain of the novel coronavirus.

The decision turned out to be illegal, and the Social Liberal party propping up Frederiksen's minority government threatened to topple it unless she called early elections to regain voters' confidence.

The Social Liberals paid a price for the gamble, losing nine of their 16 seats.

Broad consensus for Denmark's restrictive migration policy left the issue largely absent from the election campaign, but it could resurge in government negotiations.

Advocating a "zero refugee" policy, the Social Democratic government has been working on setting up a centre to house asylum seekers in Rwanda while their applications are processed. The Social Liberal Party is opposed to the plan.

"It will be very difficult for the Social Democrats to turn soft or to the left on immigration, because that has been a very pivotal point in their strategy over the past five, six years," Stubager said. "So to give up on that would have dramatic consequences for them."

Danish politics have been heavily influenced by the far-right in recent decades, but three populist parties together won just 14.4 percent of votes and are not expected to play a key role in the upcoming negotiations.

The anti-immigration Danish People's Party, which until a few years ago hovered above 20 percent, fell to 2.6 percent, its worst result since entering parliament in 1998.

A new party founded by former immigration minister Inger Stojberg, the Denmark Democrats, instead won 8.1 percent giving them 14 seats on a platform of less centralisation, less influence from Europe and fewer immigrants.

READ MORE: Why was turnout down in 2022 Danish election?