Danish PM secures win, but no majority

Denmark’s Social Democrats, led by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, finished first in Tuesday’s general election but recorded their weakest result in more than 120 years, while the left-wing bloc failed to secure a majority.

With all votes counted in metropolitan Denmark, the left bloc secured 84 seats in the 179-seat parliament, compared with 77 for the right, falling short of the 90 needed for a majority.

The centrist Moderate Party, led by Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, emerged as kingmaker with 14 seats, setting the stage for difficult coalition negotiations in the coming weeks.

Frederiksen, in office since 2019, told cheering supporters she was “ready to take on the responsibility of serving as Denmark’s prime minister again for the next four years”.

She added, however, that “there is little to suggest that forming a government will be easy.”

Moments earlier, Lokke called for a cross-bloc coalition — despite all three parties in Frederiksen’s unprecedented left-right governing alliance since 2022 losing ground in the election.

“We must not be divided. We must not be red (left-wing). We must not be blue (right-wing). We have to work together,” he said.

Coalition partner Troels Lund Poulsen of the Liberal Party ruled out forming a new government with the Social Democrats.

“Either we have a centre-right government, or we go into opposition,” he told supporters.

Far-right rise

Frederiksen, widely seen as the favourite going into the election, has been praised for her leadership after pushing back against repeated demands by US President Donald Trump to annex Greenland — a Danish autonomous territory he claims the United States needs for national security.

The prime minister spent part of election day in Aalborg, her electoral stronghold in the country’s northwest, meeting Greenlanders living in Denmark.

Traditionally Denmark’s largest party, the Social Democrats won just 21.8 per cent of the vote — their lowest share since 1903 and down from 27.5 per cent in 2022.

“We were expecting to lose ground — that’s normal when you run for a third term,” Frederiksen said.

“Of course I wish we had received more votes.”

Green Left leader Pia Olsen Dyhr said her party’s “historic” result — making it the second-largest on the left — showed voters had given them a mandate and that she was “ready to negotiate”.

“We must prioritise welfare; we must prioritise the green transition. And if we can’t do that, then we will not enter government. Then we will be in opposition.”

The anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, long influential in shaping policy but weakened in the 2022 election, more than tripled its support to 9.1 per cent.

“A tripling of votes is a remarkable expression of the Danish people in support of my party,” said leader Morten Messerschmidt.

“We are all now waiting to see what happens in France, in Hungary, in the Netherlands and, not least, in the United Kingdom with Nigel Farage.”

‘Serious situation’

Four seats in Denmark’s parliament are reserved for its two autonomous territories — two for Greenland, where votes have yet to be counted, and two for the Faroe Islands, where one seat went to each bloc.

The election campaign generated unusual interest in Greenland, where 27 candidates competed for the two seats.

“I think it’s the most important election for the Danish parliament in Greenland in history,” Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told AFP in Nuuk.

“We are in a time where we have a superpower trying to acquire us, take us, control us,” he said, describing the territory as being in a “serious situation”.

“I think the most important thing that all the parties in Greenland have agreed on is that we need to work together, whoever is elected to parliament.”

In Denmark, however, the dispute over the vast Arctic island was not central to the campaign, which instead focused on domestic issues such as inflation, the welfare state, the environment and immigration.

As prime minister, Frederiksen has advocated further tightening migration policy to curb support for the far right.

“The election has also shown that there remains a very broad majority in the new Folketing in favour of a strict immigration policy in Denmark,” she said.

“We must control the number of people coming here.”