Danish Parliamentary Election 2022

[Chris from Brum]

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).

How good are the North Atlantic members at pork-barreling when they're in a position to use their influence?

[nelson]

Nov 11, 2022 17:03:29 GMT Chris from Brum said:

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

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).

How good are the North Atlantic members at pork-barreling when they're in a position to use their influence?

There haven't really been many such occasions but most commentators expect Frederiksen to be willing to pay a high prince for their support so skills may not matter that much; they are small entities with only 2% of the combined population of the state so the price won't be unrealistically high as long as we're talking economic resources, constitutional changes (free association deals etc.) will be harder since it's so hard to change the Danish constitution. Aaja Chemnitz is an excellent negotiator, Sjurdur Skaale has the problem that he can't really afford not to back his Danish sister party in the end without internal criticism. Høegh-Dam is inexperienced and hasn't really achieved much during her previous term. 

EDIT: There's also the issue of whether Chemnitz wants to be in the government, unlike Skaale she hasn't ruled it out and it would make some sense. There's a small portfolio called Nordic Affairs in charge of Nordic cooperation which is always added to another portfolio, but could be augmented to Nordic and Arctic Affairs with representation in the Arctic Council and all the regional cooperation that goes with it. 

[nelson]

The Alternative has U-turned once again on the issue of letting an external law firm evaluate whether there's basis for putting Frederiksen before a Realm Court in the Mink scandal after three professors (two in constitutional law and one in criminal law) have on their own initiative made an evaluation which concludes there's no basis for convicting her, which means there's once again a majority against an official external evaluation and the case is off the table (making it easier to form a Frederiksen led broad government). 

It also makes The Alternative and esp. party leader Fransciska Rosenkilde look ridiculous. A U-turn is called a kovending (cow-turn) in Danish and the party is now said to have made a cow-cow-cow turn and engaging in a solo stampede.

[nelson]

Both the SocDems and SPP have agreed to back former Minister of Defense Søren Gade as the next Speaker (litt. Chairman of the Folketing) despite the narrow Red bloc majority, which means he's certain to be elected. For the SocDems it has the advantage of neutralising the popular Gade and for Ellemann-Jensen it removes the most credible alternative as Liberal leader. So a win-win for both.

[nelson]

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.

(...)

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. 

The board decided not to call an extraordinary conference and will let the two deputy chairmen constitute a joint chairmanship until their next ordinary conference in October 2023. A majority wanted to continue to contest national elections.

[nelson]

Jakob Ellemann-Jensen used his speech at the Liberals' party conference to announce that the party is going into serious government negotiations with the SocDems, but want "big concessions". 

Meanwhile Lars Løkke Rasmussen has (re-)stated that the SocDems, Moderates and Liberals would be a natural basis for a new government, but since one of the main gains of going into government for the Liberals is to make LLR and his party irrelevant and get rid of them either by LLR leaving politics or the party gradually imploding it is generally assumed by pundits and other observers that SocDem and Liberals with or without SPP (most likely with) is the most likely option, and that the two "troublesome" centrist parties SocLibs and Moderates will be left outside. Both the SocDems and Liberals also consider LLR to be unreliable and are worried about both his tendency to "reinterpret" agreements if it benefits him and the reliability of the many political amateurs in his parliamentary group. 

A lot can ofc still happen, but we should at leat enter the actual negotiation phase soon after an unusually indirect preliminary phase with lots of multi-party "seminars" about various issues. 

[nelson]

The Red Greens and The Alternative have left the government negotiations after Frederiksen made it clear that she'll continue and "deepen" the negotiations with the Blue bloc parties.

EDIT: New Right is also out, but strangely enough not Liberal Alliance even if they ofc can't be in a broad government with the SocDems, but I assume that's because they're considered a "mainstream" centre-right party.

[nelson]

Nov 23, 2022 11:55:21 GMT nelson said:

The Red Greens and The Alternative have left the government negotiations after Frederiksen made it clear that she'll continue and "deepen" the negotiations with the Blue bloc parties.

EDIT: New Right is also out, but strangely enough not Liberal Alliance even if they ofc can't be in a broad government with the SocDems, but I assume that's because they're considered a "mainstream" centre-right party.

The Red Greens were asked to leave and it's clear that the bitterness about this after having backed Frederiksen for four years, and the symbolism of letting the economically very right wing LA stay as part of the talks after ditching the two left wing parties, means the Red-Greens price for backing Frederiksen will go up quite a bit (incl. on sensitive issues like refugee policy) if the talks with the Liberals fail and she'll have to return to the narrow Red bloc majority for support. So Frederiksen must be quite confident that the Liberals are going to agree to a coalition. 

[nelson]

The Conservatives have left the government negotiations, so it's slowly getting down to the actual potential participants; a bit bizarre that LA is still involved, but presumably they too will leave shortly.

The 35 day record for the longest time before a government is formed after an election looks certain to be beaten. 

[nelson]

Dec 3, 2022 17:30:48 GMT nelson said:

The 35 day record for the longest time before a government is formed after an election looks certain to be beaten. 

Today is the 35th day so it's now official (or will be at midnight, but there'll be no announcement of a government today). The previous record was set in 1975 in the aftermath of the 1973 "earth quake election" that brought a host of new (and a couple of old) populist and/or extremist parties into parliament and forever buried the traditional four party system, back then SocDel leader Anker Jørgensen ended up forming a one-party minority government after four "Queen rounds" with three different negotiation leaders, this time it has been a far more boring and sluggish process with a lot of tedious "political theatre" intended to justify parties doing the opposite of what they promised to do during the election campaign. 

[jamie]

The Socialist People’s Party has left the government negotiations and also stated that it will not even provide confidence to Mette Frederiksen in the expected government across the middle. The party preferred to use the Red majority to form a government, but it’s a very pragmatic party and the leadership were clearly willing to compromise a great deal to be part of the governing majority. They name financial support for the poorest, climate change, nature, employment reforms and tax cuts as the issues where there was a big gulf between them and Venstre. Reading between the lines, it very much sounds like this outcome was a long time coming and that Frederiksen is very much focused on placating Venstre rather than getting any ‘Red’ policy achievements. We are now left with a situation where SF, which Frederiksen only today described as “a party that is very close to us and with which we have had a very, very good collaboration in recent years” is out while the Liberal Alliance, arguably the party which has the least in common with the Social Democrats, is (theoretically) still part of the negotiations.

[nelson]

It will be pretty risky for Frederiksen if she accepts extensive liberal/supply side reforms. She got the chairmanship promising to return the party to a "classic social democratic welfare line" after the Thorning-Schmidt/Corydon axis had taken it towards the right and gone "reform amok", as Thorning (in-)famously phrased it. Her mentor former chairman and minister of finance in the Nyrup governments in the 90's Mogens Lykketoft has publicly warned her against returning to supply side "reforms" and going soft on welfare and redistribution (which is remarkable given their personal relationship and Lykketoft not exactly being on the party's left wing). 

Her and her advisors' calculation is that the main swing vote in Danish election is no longer the "safety focused" provincial lower middle class/working class it has been for the last 20 yeas, but younger, green, and moderately economically liberal "progressive" city voters, but they have plenty of other options and the backlash from her base could be substantial. The attempt to present a government with the centre-right as a necessity given the country faces multiple "crisis" (right now every potential problem or undesirable societal development is presented as a "crisis" by the SocDems) is likely a tad too transparent and cynical for many voters. 

[jamie]

Dec 7, 2022 15:29:12 GMT nelson said:

Her and her advisors' calculation is that the main swing vote in Danish election is no longer the "safety focused" provincial lower middle class/working class it has been for the last 20 yeas, but younger, green, and moderately economically liberal "progressive" city voters, but they have plenty of other options and the backlash from her base could be substantial. The attempt to present a government with the centre-right as a necessity given the country faces multiple "crisis" (right now every potential problem or undesirable societal development is presented as a "crisis" by the SocDems) is likely a tad too transparent and cynical for many voters. 

Do such people even vote Social Democrat in great numbers to begin with? And from the SF statement it doesn’t look like this government is going to be particularly progressive or green so are such people going to reward Frederiksen by switching to her party? (Perhaps some Moderate voters will, but people voting for the ex-Venstre PMs party probably aren’t voters you want to rely on to win elections long-term)

It’s also a bit odd to use it as an excuse to ally herself with Venstre. If you believe there is a ‘climate crisis’ then how is allying with the political wing of Danish agriculture going to lead to the radical solutions needed to solve it? If you believe there is a crisis in welfare areas like healthcare or mental health then how is prioritising tax cuts going to solve it? The COVID and cost of living crisis solutions the Social Democrats made were always based on Red majorities with Venstre only being a nice addition when they choose to support them. 

[nelson]

There is now tripartite talks between the SocDems, Liberals and Moderates. With SPP declaring they're going into opposition there's fear in the Liberals that some of the government's internal compromises may be voted down in parliament making inclusion of the Moderates or at least a formal cooperation agreement more attractive, but LLR will likely demand to be in the government rather than offer confidence and supply.  

I think it's safe to say that LA and DPP are now only nominally part of the negotiations, they aren't invited to any meetings and haven't participated in a while. 

[nelson]

Both the Liberals and Moderates now say that they won't back an investigation of Frederiksen's role in the Mink scandal, according to Lars Løkke Rasmussen "you can't start a new government with the PM under investigation", this has been met with very harsh replies from the rest of the former Blue Bloc ("politics at its worst" "LLR and Ellemann sold the rule of law for ministerial cars" "political corruption" etc.). The new government is expected to be presented Tuesday or Wednesday next week it'll include the SocDems and Liberals, but it's unknown whether the Moderates will be in the cabinet or provide confidence & supply based on a detailed agreement, what's clear is that Lars Løkke Rasmussen has been allowed to influence the government agreement (he's insisted on "reviewing" the compromise between the SocDems and Liberals and the three parties have negotiated for a week now), there's an outside chance that the SocLibs (Radikale) will also be included to give it a more solid majority. 

[nelson]

Predictably some Liberals aren't happy. 

Their youth org VU says that they won't campaign for the mother party in the next election if they join a SocDem led government, their chairman says that "we're against a SocDem led government regardless of who sits in it" and that they'll have to reevaluate their relationship with the mother party if it "doesn't work for a Liberal Denmark anymore". 

Liberal councillor in Copenhagen Cille Hald Egholm tweeted: "one thing is breaching a promise by going into government in exchange for significant concessions, but to give up a legal inquiry of a potential breach of the Constitution for a couple of cabinet posts that's fucking insane and goes against everything we stand for in the Liberals". She got quite a lot of support. But that's social media, let's see if parts of the party organization will join in. 

[jamie]

Radikale are out. Lol.

[nelson]

Dec 13, 2022 14:53:34 GMT jamie said:

Radikale are out. Lol.

Predictable, it would have damaged the SocDem's "hardliner brand" too much if they'd been included and as tempting as a more secure majority would have been SocDems, Libs and Moderates do have a majority on their own given the North Atlantic reps don't vote on Danish issues and three of them are aligned with SocDems and Libs and vote with them on "realm matters".  

Notable that they cite climate policy and children & youth policy as the stumbling blocks but claim that a solution has been found on the disagreement about the Rwanda refugee centre, and that their leader Martin Lidegaard said a government agreement will be presented tomorrow. 

DPP have also today formally left the negotiations (ironically saying it was due to the SocLibs/Radikale getting too much influence..) and won't offer confidence and supply.

[jamie]

nelson Radikale have said they are neither a support party nor an opposition party (including overthrowing the government). Is that just a wishy washy non-answer or are they de facto one of those 2 things (SF seemed to be similarly vague but quickly clarified they were an opposition party, I would guess Radikale will do the opposite).

[nelson]

Dec 13, 2022 15:26:04 GMT jamie said:

nelson Radikale have said they are neither a support party nor an opposition party (including overthrowing the government). Is that just a wishy washy non-answer or are they de facto one of those 2 things (SF seemed to be similarly vague but quickly clarified they were an opposition party, I would guess Radikale will do the opposite).

As you know, but others likely won't the Danish term a support parti (støtteparti) usually means a party that will support the government in all important votes in return for being consulted first and given special consideration but with the detailed Red bloc agreement between the one-party government and the rest of the bloc in 2019 it got a more narrow definiton so what Lidegaard means is presumably that they won't have a formal confidence & support agreement with the government but since they agree with the compromises between the other parties on the vast majority of issues they'll not really be in opposition in the traditional sense either. They'll be somewhere in-between a support party and "constructive opposition", like you I'll  assume they'll be closer to the former than the latter. Lidegaard would probably personally prefer them to be a support party (in the traditional pre-2019 informal, no-agreement sense), while the more principled/progressive/woke (take your pick) wing would prefer to be in opposition, so the neutral answer likely also reflects an internal disagreement.