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Danish far-right party under parliament threshold in new poll

Ritzau/The Local
Ritzau/The Local - [email protected]
Danish far-right party under parliament threshold in new poll
The far-right Danish party Nye Borgerlige is sliding in the polls after months of in-fighting. Photo: Bo Amstrup/Ritzau Scanpix

The far-right Nye Borgerlige (New Right) party would fail to clear the threshold for representation in the Danish parliament should its numbers in a new poll be replicated in the next election.

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The party, which runs on a libertarian, EU-sceptic and anti-immigration platform, has its lowest level of backing among voters for three years, a new poll by institute Voxmeter on behalf of news wire Ritzau shows.

With 1.5 percent of the total vote share in the poll, Nye Borgerlige would be short of the 2 percent needed to get MPs in parliament.

The poll score is the worst registered by the right wing party since 2020. It gained a 3.7 percent of the vote in the November 2022 general election.

It has suffered a bumpy few months since then including exclusions, resignations and defections to other parties among its lawmakers.

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Former leader Lars Boje Mathiesen was removed from the position and excluded from the party last month after an apparent dispute over pay demands.

Mathiesen had taken over as party leader from co-founder Pernille Vermund as recently as February. The leadership change resulted in MP Mikkel Bjørn, the leader of parliament’s citizenship committee, defecting to the national conservative Danish People’s Party, citing differences with Mathiesen. Leading members of the party’s youth group joined Bjørn in leaving in protest at Mathiesen’s leadership.

Vermund is now expected to return as leader after Mathiesen was ousted.

Another senior party member, MP Mette Thiesen, quit the party days after the November general election, and also eventually joined the Danish People’s Party.

Local politician Henriette Ergemann was chosen as new deputy leader under Mathiesen but was forced to step down after less than two weeks after media revealed she had espoused conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 vaccine on social media. Ergemann is no longer a member of the party.

The various fallouts mean Nye Borgerlige has been reduced from six to three members of parliament since November’s election. One of the three remaining MPs, Peter Seier Christensen, has taken leave due to stress.

The new poll is based on 1,038 responses from a representative group of Danish voters over the age of 18 between April 10th and 16th. The results carry a 0.7 percent statistical uncertainty.

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