Red-Green Alliance lead political spokesperson Pelle Dragsted said he will “try” to work with the Moderates, led by Lars Løkke Rasmussen, after the election delivered a fragmented parliament.
Dragsted told news wire Ritzau he was nominating Social Democratic leader Mette Frederiksen to lead negotiations to form the government and hopes an agreement can be found between all of the parties in the left and the Moderates, a centrist party which prefers to work with parties from both sides of the political middle ground.
The process will not be easy according to Dragsted, whose party sits furthest to the left in the Danish parliament. Løkke, when leader of his former party the Liberals, led right-wing governments from 2009-11 and 2015-19.
“As Lars Løkke Rasmussen says, there’s a long way from the Red Green Alliance to the Moderates,” Dragsted said.
“But we think it’s our duty to try. Otherwise we risk sending power over to [far-right party leader] Morten Messerschmidt with all the consequences that would have for our international relations and environmental ambitions,” he said.
“I think we owe it to each other to try,” he said.
Dragsted pointed to some areas of consensus between the far-left and centrist parties, including “respect for international conventions” and environmental issues.
However, he noted that a red line for his party would be that “inequality in society doesn’t keep rising.”
“We can’t have one of the world’s richest countries where pensioners can’t afford food in the supermarket and, at the same time, tax breaks worth billions are given to the likes of the big banks,” he said.
“I don’t think the big division in the world right now is between right and left. It’s a division between authoritarian and democratic forces,” he also said.
In a party leader debate earlier on Tuesday, Frederiksen said her preference was for a government consisting of the left-leaning or “red bloc” parties alongside the Moderates, noting that the conservative parties have largely rejected a new centrist coalition.
Both Frederiksen and Løkke hope to be appointed in the role of lead negotiator to form the next government.
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