Danish Parliamentary Election 2022

[nelson]

Top 10 of personal votes. Vanopslagh far ahead of Ellemann-Jensen and he almost beat LLR. 

1. Mette Frederiksen (SocD) 60,837
2. Inger Støjberg (DD) 47,211
3. Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Mod) 38,439
4. Alex Vanopslagh (LA) 38,284
5. Jacob Mark (SPP) 31,235
6. Magnus Heunicke (SocD) 22,102
7. Jakob Ellemann-Jensen (Lib) 20,945
8. Pia Olsen Dyhr (SPP) 18,758
9. Nicolai Wammen (SocD) 18,022
10. Søren Gade (Lib) 17,998

[matureleft]

Nov 2, 2022 20:49:34 GMT nelson said:

Top 10 of personal votes. Vanopslagh far ahead of Ellemann-Jensen and he almost beat LLR. 

1. Mette Frederiksen (SocD) 60,837
2. Inger Støjberg (DD) 47,211
3. Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Mod) 38,439
4. Alex Vanopslagh (LA) 38,284
5. Jacob Mark (SPP) 31,235
6. Magnus Heunicke (SocD) 22,102
7. Jakob Ellemann-Jensen (Lib) 20,945
8. Pia Olsen Dyhr (SPP) 18,758
9. Nicolai Wammen (SocD) 18,022
10. Søren Gade (Lib) 17,998

Intriguing, at least to me, that SPP manage 2 of the top 10. You've explained about their leader. Jacob Mark seems to have built a huge personal vote since his first election in 2015 (he seems to be only 31 now). 

[nelson]

Nov 2, 2022 19:12:03 GMT jamie said:

nelson is there any discussion on what sort of posts/policies the Social Liberals want in the government? Obviously the Social Democrats (and presumably the Socialists as well) are wary of their ‘reforms’ and demands based politics, and it’s not like a party with 3.8% can look reasonable asking for a number of heavy hitting posts, but presumably the Social Liberals don’t want to make the compromises needed for government without getting something good, and as you say they are in a relatively strong position for negotiations.

It's not customary to publicly demand certain positions, so that's unknown. Traditionally they want the Ministry of Economy for their leader (both Marianne Jelved in the 90s and Margrethe Vestager in the Thorning-Schmidt cabinet had it), if they can't get that they'll demand one of the minor economic ministries (Business or Taxation) to get a seat in the government's Economy Committee which has been where most important decisions are made in recent governments. In the current government the ministers for Social Affairs and Climate & Energy are on the Economy Committee, and Climate & Energy would also be high on their list of priorities (and Martin Lidegaard who is the most likely new leader has held that portfolio). SPP will want Environment if they're included and the Moderates will want Business if they're in the cabinet, and the SocDems always insist on keeping the central welfare ministry Social Affairs (with the biggest budget) and Labour so that limits their options. Education is always very attractive for the SocLibs as is Development.

Their minimum demands are an immediate stop to the Rwanda refugee center plans, increasing the labour force by 50,000 in the next seven years (but even SPP says 40,000 so that goal is in itself fairly uncontroversial the discussion will be about the mix of labour migration, unemployment rules and taxes), and a nature law with binding goals for biodiversity (a joint non-SocDem Red bloc demand). The Moderates agree with them on more liberal rules for labour migration and that's an area where the SocDems and SPP will almost certainly have to give in.

[nelson]

Nov 2, 2022 19:36:16 GMT John Chanin said:

I presume from the discussion here that Danes get two votes - one for the party, and one for the preferred candidate on the party list. I assume the personal vote can’t be for a different party. How many candidates would there generally be on the party list (compared to the number of seats available in that province)? Do parties make any attempt to recommend who to give the personal vote to?

By the way thanks to nelson and jamie  for their coverage of a country I know little about, with a confusing plethora of parties, the distinctions between which I find hard to discern despite my reading of this thread.

There's only one vote, which can either be given to the party list or a candidate. List votes are distributed to the candidates either according to the number of personal votes, place on the party list or votes in the so-called standing constituency each candidate is standing in. The party choose which of these methods to use, but nowadays all parties not on the far left (Red Greens and The Alternative which use party lists) choose the first method (it's considered most "democratic") with a few local exceptions. Left wing parties traditionally thought their membership should decide which candidates got elected but the SocDems and SPP have given up on that practice. 

Parties do not officially promote one candidate above the others unless it's their party leader, apart from the few parties using ranked party lists. Unofficially key figures are given more resources.  

Where are 92 opstillingskredse (litt. standing constituencies), the number of constituency seats in each of the multi-member constituencies (storkredse = greater constituencies) where the candidates are elected equals the number of standing constituencies. The standing constituencies "descend" from the old single member constituencies from back when FPTP was used (prior to 1915 in the capital region and 1920 in the rest of the country), but their number has been reduced a bit since through mergers (esp. in 2007) and there has been some splits as well in urban areas with high population growth. Normally each party (apart from very small ones) has a candidate in each standing constituency, this time some of the new ones had significantly fewer (about half). Standing constituencies form the basis for local party chapters. Since no party expects to win more than 92 seats they never field more than one candidate in each standing constituency but they're allowed to do so. 

Basically Denmark went from FPTP to PR by pooling the existing constituencies into multi-member "greater constituencies" and then adding some levelling seats to secure proportionality, and the electoral system (and party organization) still reflects that. 

[Georg Ebner]

Pollster-perFormances.
Final opinionPoll of every company:

Best ones (= lowest deViation from actual result):

Gallup was best, but all (apart from the older ones, for obvious reasons) had misses of less than 1% per party, what is quite satisfying.

[John Chanin]

Nov 2, 2022 22:21:49 GMT nelson said:

Nov 2, 2022 19:36:16 GMT John Chanin said:

I presume from the discussion here that Danes get two votes - one for the party, and one for the preferred candidate on the party list. I assume the personal vote can’t be for a different party. How many candidates would there generally be on the party list (compared to the number of seats available in that province)? Do parties make any attempt to recommend who to give the personal vote to?

By the way thanks to nelson and jamie  for their coverage of a country I know little about, with a confusing plethora of parties, the distinctions between which I find hard to discern despite my reading of this thread.

There's only one vote, which can either be given to the party list or a candidate. List votes are distributed to the candidates either according to the number of personal votes, place on the party list or votes in the so-called standing constituency each candidate is standing in. The party choose which of these methods to use, but nowadays all parties not on the far left (Red Greens and The Alternative which use party lists) choose the first method (it's considered most "democratic") with a few local exceptions. Left wing parties traditionally thought their membership should decide which candidates got elected but the SocDems and SPP have given up on that practice. 

Parties do not officially promote one candidate above the others unless it's their party leader, apart from the few parties using ranked party lists. Unofficially key figures are given more resources.  

Where are 92 opstillingskredse (litt. standing constituencies), the number of constituency seats in each of the multi-member constituencies (storkredse = greater constituencies) where the candidates are elected equals the number of standing constituencies. The standing constituencies "descend" from the old single member constituencies from back when FPTP was used (prior to 1915 in urban areas and 1920 in rural), but their number has been reduced a bit since through mergers (esp. in 2007) and there has been some splits as well in urban areas with high population growth. Normally each party (apart from very small ones) has a candidate in each standing constituency, this time some of the new ones had significantly fewer (about half). Standing constituencies form the basis for local party chapters. Since no party expects to win more than 92 seats they never field more than one candidate in each standing constituency but they're allowed to do so. 

Basically Denmark went from FPTP to PR by pooling the existing constituencies into multi-member "greater constituencies" and then adding some levelling seats to secure proportionality, and the electoral system (and party organization) still reflects that. 

Thanks. A highly complex system, which hadn't made sense previously based on your stray comments about personal votes. 

[nelson]

Aajaa Chemnitz Larsen says that Lars Løkke Rasmussen called her on the election night and asked whether she'd be willing to support a Blue bloc/Moderates government. She turned him down saying she can't accept a government based on support by the far right and currently backs Frederiksen for PM, but keep her options open. Does make LLR seem like a hypocrite if he really considered a one seat majority centre-right government (though I suppose that since IA is a "red" party it would technically include both sides ). 

[nelson]

11 of the Denmark Democrats 14 new MPs have a DPP background, most of them former MPs, 2 (incl. Inger Støjberg) are ex-Liberals and one hasn't been politically active before. So a very high degree of Continuity DPP (or "DPP Jutland"). 

[nelson]

Nov 2, 2022 14:55:21 GMT nelson said:

Sofie Carsten Nielsen has stepped down as leader of the SocLibs (Radikale). First party leader to go, probably not the last. 

Deputy leader and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Martin Lidegaard (55) takes over, he's from the pragmatic wing of the party that's prepared to accept most of the SocDem/Blue bloc consensus on "foreigner policy" so his election increases the likelihood of them joining a government. Lidegaard lost the previous leadership election in 2020 to Sofie Carsten Nielsen where only a third of the parliamentary group backed him. The group was split 3-3 between pragmatists and idealists after SCN had said they'd remain neutral, but seems she backed Lidegaard in the end acting as a tie-breaker.

[nelson]

The Alternative has (conveniently) changed their mind and will no longer demand a legal review of Frederiksen's role in the Mink scandal conducted by an external law firm which could potentially be used to charge her before a Realm Court, which means there's no majority for it. Pretty hypocritical of them since they likely attracted some principled Red Green and SPP supporters by supporting it during the campaign.

The Alternative is back to backing a legal inquiry after party leader Franciska Rosenkilde failed to get the U-turn approved by her parliamentary group, rather amateurish not have support from her MPs before issuing a public statement. This makes the government negotiations more complex, since the Blue bloc can now hope to get Frederiksen before a Realm Court and have promised their voters they'll try to get her charged.

[nelson]

Nov 4, 2022 10:24:50 GMT nelson said:

The Alternative has (conveniently) changed their mind and will no longer demand a legal review of Frederiksen's role in the Mink scandal conducted by an external law firm which could potentially be used to charge her before a Realm Court, which means there's no majority for it. Pretty hypocritical of them since they likely attracted some principled Red Green and SPP supporters by supporting it during the campaign.

The Alternative is back to backing a legal inquiry after party leader Franciska Rosenkilde failed to get the U-turn approved by her parliamentary group, rather amateurish not have support from her MPs before issuing a public statement. This makes the government negotiations more complex, since the Blue bloc can now hope to get Frederiksen before a Realm Court and have promised their voters they'll try to get her charged.

The Moderates have changed their position post-election and don't want an inquiry but they'll come under a lot of pressure from the rest of the centre-right and many of their own voters for "saving" Frederiksen now that they're the only party blocking an inquiry.

[nelson]

The second party leader to step down after the election is Marianne Karlsmose from the Christian Democrats, who has also recommended the party's governing board to call an extraordinary party conference with the sole object of deciding not to contest national elections anymore and not collect signatures to get on the ballot (which is a task that has taken up many of the party's resources). Saying the party has no realistic chance of entering parliament and needs to concentrate on local politics and influencing public opinion.

Karlsmose is a former party leader who recently took over the leadership again after its young chairman Isabella Arendt failed to get support for a new centrist platform where the party no longer advocated abolishing free abortion, but merely wanted better information to pregnant women about alternatives to abortion and more assistance to single mothers (Arendt subsequently joined the Conservative but didn't get elected). Very few Danes support banning abortion and advocating it basically makes the party unelectable but is also historically the cause it was founded on (as well as opposition to legalisation of pornography, obviously also a lost cause in the internet era). 

If the Christian Democrats finally give up on running in national elections it'll give the Blue bloc a small but potentially important advantage. The party hasn't passed the threshold since 2001 (but has occasionally been represented by defectors from other centre-right parties) and has caused the centre-right to waste votes in seven consecutive elections since then. 

[nelson]

New Right lose a seat as Mette Thiesen leaves the party (very much a case of "you can't fire me, I quit"). Her current boyfriend had repeatedly threatened and harassed her ex-boyfriend who works for the party and showed up drunk at the election night party and threatened another party official who tried to prevent a confrontation between the two. But Thiesen has also been accused of being the main reason the party got such a disappointing election result by offering to accept campaign donations in excess of the legal minimum (and claiming party chairman Pernille Vermund did it all the time) and agreeing that pensioners should - in principle - be allowed to turn down gay and Jewish care workers when asked by a journalist ("repeatedly falling into an elephant trap" in the words of another of their MPs). 

[finsobruce]

Nov 7, 2022 15:43:32 GMT nelson said:

New Right lose a seat as Mette Thiesen leaves the party (very much a case of "you can't fire me, I quit"). Her current boyfriend had repeatedly threatened and harassed her ex-boyfriend who works for the party and showed up drunk at the election night party and threatened another party official who tried to prevent a confrontation between the two. But Thiesen has also been accused of being the main reason the party got such a disappointing election result by offering to accept campaign donations in excess of the legal minimum (and claiming party chairman Pernille Vermund did it all the time) and agreeing that pensioners should - in principle - be allowed to turn down gay and Jewish care workers when asked by a journalist ("repeatedly falling into an elephant trap" in the words of another of their MPs). 

"repeatedly falling into an elephant trap".

Very appropriate in a place where the highest honour is the Order of the Elephant.

[greenhert]

Nov 7, 2022 11:15:58 GMT nelson said:

The second party leader to step down after the election is Marianne Karlsmose from the Christian Democrats, who has also recommended the party's governing board to call an extraordinary party conference with the sole object of deciding not to contest national elections anymore and not collect signatures to get on the ballot (which is a task that has taken up many of the party's resources). Saying the party has no realistic chance of entering parliament and needs to concentrate on local politics and influencing public opinion.

Karlsmose is a former party leader who recently took over the leadership again after its young chairman Isabella Arendt failed to get support for a new centrist platform where the party no longer advocated abolishing free abortion, but merely wanted better information to pregnant women about alternatives to abortion and more assistance to single mothers (Arendt subsequently joined the Conservative but didn't get elected). Very few Danes support banning abortion and advocating it basically makes the party unelectable but is also historically the cause it was founded on (as well as opposition to legalisation of pornography, obviously also a lost cause in the internet era). 

If the Christian Democrats finally give up on running in national elections it'll give the Blue bloc a small but potentially important advantage. The party hasn't passed the threshold since 2001 (but has occasionally been represented by defectors from other centre-right parties) and has caused the centre-right to waste votes in seven consecutive elections since then. 

Similar parties across Northern and Western Europe are not faring much better, due to long-term secularisation in Europe and a decline in church attendance. The CDA will likely never be a major force in Dutch politics again, and the Norwegian and Swedish counterparts to Denmark's Christian Democrats usually struggle to keep their poll ratings above each country's 4% election threshold. 

[nelson]

The Red Greens say they'll vote against Frederiksen as PM if she goes into government with the Moderates, which complicates government formation (and also puts a lot of pressure on SPP not to enter a coalition). 

The Liberals are now likely needed and they're split along generational lines with the leading younger MPs wanting the party to become leaders of the opposition and rebuild from that position (scared of the success of LA among young voters which could in time make them the biggest centre-right party) and the older generation that want a (for some last) shot at being in office and moving the direction of the government's economic and business policies to the right, with some also arguing Ellemann-Jensen needs a top tier cabinet position to make him a credible PM candidate next time. Ellemann-Jensen is said to lean towards going into opposition. 

[nelson]

Nov 11, 2022 11:03:59 GMT nelson said:

The Red Greens say they'll vote against Frederiksen as PM if she goes into government with the Moderates, which complicates government formation (and also puts a lot of pressure on SPP not to enter a coalition). 

The Liberals are now likely needed and they're split along generational lines with the leading younger MPs wanting the party to become leaders of the opposition and rebuild from that position (scared of the success of LA among young voters which could in time make them the biggest centre-right party) and the older generation that want a (for some last) shot at being in office and moving the direction of the government's economic and business policies to the right, with some also arguing Ellemann-Jensen needs a top tier cabinet position to make him a credible PM candidate next time. Ellemann-Jensen is said to lean towards going into opposition. 

SocDems 50 + Moderates 16, SPP 15, SocLibs 7 and the three "red" North Atlantic seats only adds up to 91 seats, which would be a very wobbly majority, especially with so many political amateurs in the Moderates' parliamentary group. 

[ibfc]

Nov 11, 2022 11:23:26 GMT nelson said:

Nov 11, 2022 11:03:59 GMT nelson said:

The Red Greens say they'll vote against Frederiksen as PM if she goes into government with the Moderates, which complicates government formation (and also puts a lot of pressure on SPP not to enter a coalition). 

The Liberals are now likely needed and they're split along generational lines with the leading younger MPs wanting the party to become leaders of the opposition and rebuild from that position (scared of the success of LA among young voters which could in time make them the biggest centre-right party) and the older generation that want a (for some last) shot at being in office and moving the direction of the government's economic and business policies to the right, with some also arguing Ellemann-Jensen needs a top tier cabinet position to make him a credible PM candidate next time. Ellemann-Jensen is said to lean towards going into opposition. 

SocDems 50 + Moderates 16, SPP 15, SocLibs 7 and the three "red" North Atlantic seats only adds up to 91 seats, which would be a very wobbly majority, especially with so many political amateurs in the Moderates' parliamentary group. 

Wouldn’t their inexperience make it easier for LRR to corral them? I would’ve thought most of them would respect LRR quite a bit since the party is essentially a personality vehicle.

[nelson]

Nov 11, 2022 13:15:42 GMT ibfc said:

Nov 11, 2022 11:23:26 GMT nelson said:

SocDems 50 + Moderates 16, SPP 15, SocLibs 7 and the three "red" North Atlantic seats only adds up to 91 seats, which would be a very wobbly majority, especially with so many political amateurs in the Moderates' parliamentary group. 

Wouldn’t their inexperience make it easier for LRR to corral them? I would’ve thought most of them would respect LRR quite a bit since the party is essentially a personality vehicle.

In Denmark well-established parties where the MPs are mainly people who have gone through the party's youth org and have been "schooled" in politics from a young age always have better party discipline than new parties where the MPs don't have that background (or are party switchers). Many of the Moderates' new MPs are also people who have been quite successful in their chosen field and have fairly big egos, which increases the risk of them not being willing to compromise on issues they feel strongly about. The SocDems clearly prefer working with the Liberals for that reason (and because it's still a bigger party). With a fragmented party system Danish politics is one long line of compromises with other parties and reliability (party discipline) and trustworthiness are key assets for a party.

It's LLR by the way (for Lars Løkke Rasmussen).

[ibfc]

Nov 11, 2022 14:01:45 GMT nelson said:

Nov 11, 2022 13:15:42 GMT ibfc said:

Wouldn’t their inexperience make it easier for LRR to corral them? I would’ve thought most of them would respect LRR quite a bit since the party is essentially a personality vehicle.

In Denmark well-established parties where the MPs are mainly people who have gone through the party's youth org and have been "schooled" in politics from a young age always have better party discipline than new parties where the MPs don't have that background (or are party switchers). Many of the Moderates' new MPs are also people who have been quite successful in their chosen field and have fairly big egos, which increases the risk of them not being willing to compromise on issues they feel strongly about. The SocDems clearly prefer working with the Liberals for that reason (and because it's still a bigger party). With a fragmented party system Danish politics is one long line of compromises with other parties and reliability (party discipline) and trustworthiness are key assets for a party.

It's LLR by the way (for Lars Løkke Rasmussen).

Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense and the error was by oversight. I am very bad at typos.