Throughout the election campaign so far, the parties in the left bloc have been trying and failing to get a clear answer from Social Democrat leader Mette Frederiksen as to whether her first choice after Tuesday’s election is a purely left-leaning or 'red bloc' government or another centrist cross-bloc government.
Frederiksen currently leads a cross-bloc government made up of her own party, the Liberals (historically the Social Democrats' largest rivals and the largest party in the 'blue bloc'), and the Moderates, a relatively new party led by former Liberal prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. This is also referred to as the SVM government, after the first letter of each party's Danish name.
In what may well be her last speech during the election campaign, Frederiksen said that her priority is collaboration rather than strict bloc politics.
"I don't understand why some people want to go back to bloc politics so much," news wire Ritzau quoted the incumbent PM as telling an audience at Folketeatret in central Copenhagen, while adding that she doesn't believe politics can be simply split up into 'red' and 'blue'.
She said that while some people want the party to move further to the left and others want it to move further to the right, she wants voters to choose the Social Democrats if they want "collaboration and strong leadership".
The last election, she said, was decided by "a few hundred votes", and that this could easily be the case again on Tuesday.
"Denmark has this habit of splitting itself up roughly equally between red and blue, so it's perhaps not that crazy to have a prime minister who wants us to work with each other," Frederiksen said on Sunday.
Her choice to court both sides of the political divide has led to frustration on the left from Pia Olsen Dyhr, the leader of Green Left (Socialistisk Folkeparti).
"The Social Democrats' campaign has been full of policy that can only become a reality in collaboration with us. But still all doors, cat flaps, cracks and shortcuts are being left open for her to keep working with the right wing," Olsen Dyhr told Ritzau.
So far, policies announced by Frederiksen in the run-up to the current election on March 24th, including a wealth tax and pensions reform, have appeared to hint that she is hoping for a red bloc reunion.
At the same time, she has stated throughout the election campaign that she is open to continuing her collaboration with the Liberals after the election.
When she announced the election at the end of February, Frederiksen even went as far as saying she "did not want to be split up" from Liberal leader Troels Lund Poulsen after three years of governing together with the Moderates.
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