Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has long been the undisputed leader of the Danish left but the major setback for her Social Democrats in local elections this week has dealt a heavy blow to her authority.

The Social Democrats lost nearly half of the municipalities under their control at Tuesday’s vote, including the capital, Copenhagen, which the party had controlled for more than a century.

But Frederiksen, a 48-year-old party apparatchik praised for her ability to unify her party and who advocates strict migration policies to protect Denmark’s welfare state, has insisted she will stay on as prime minister and party leader.

“I have no intention of resigning.”

“That she needs to say so out loud illustrates the fact that her position as the untouchable party leader is weakened,” Christine Cordsen, a political commentator for public broadcaster DR, told AFP.

This is the second time since her party formed a government coalition with the Liberals and the conservative Moderates in 2022 that the Social Democrats have lost ground in an election.

In 2024, the party came in second in elections to the European Parliament, behind the Socialist People’s Party, which has now taken over the symbolically important position of Copenhagen mayor.

Frederiksen — who hails from a long-standing Social Democratic family, the daughter of a typesetter and a childcare assistant — plans to stand for re-election in 2026.

“If you had asked me a year ago, even eight months ago, I would have said, ‘Yes, Mette Frederiksen will still be our prime minister after the next elections’. Now, I’m not so sure,” Elisabet Svane, a political analyst for the daily Politiken, told AFP.

Once very popular, Frederiksen’s approval rating has dropped sharply from nearly 79 percent in early 2020 to 36 percent in October 2025, according to a YouGov survey.

Other left-wing parties have fared better with voters, as Danes grapple with skyrocketing food prices.

Under the Danish electoral system, Frederiksen must call a general election before November 1, 2026.

“Many tax cuts are planned in the new budget. I think she and the government hope this will allow Danes to approach the election campaign on a positive note, with more money than ever,” University of Copenhagen political scientist Kasper Hansen told AFP.

– No obvious successor –

Frederiksen became a member of parliament in 2001 at age 24. She went on to be elected leader of Denmark’s largest political party in 2015, succeeding Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the country’s first female prime minister, after she lost a general election.

The mother-of-two has previously served as both employment and justice minister, and has managed to unite her party without facing any real opposition.

Even today, Danish media struggle to name a potential successor.

“There is no real contender, no crown prince within the party, so the current situation will increase the power struggles inside” the party, Cordsen said.

Heading at first a minority government made up solely of the Social Democrats from 2019 to 2022, Instagram fan Frederiksen was initially widely hailed for Denmark’s response to Covid-19.

But she stumbled over a so-called “mink crisis”: the culling of the country’s massive fur animal stocks that she ordered for health reasons turned out to be illegal.

“After this crisis, she managed to bounce back,” Svane noted.

Frederiksen’s second term has been marked by a tightening of Danish migration policies to counter the rise of the far-right, alongside a stronger international profile with unwavering support for Ukraine and a sharp rise in defence spending.

“She focuses heavily on international challenges, which is very noble, but it’s not what wins national elections,” Svane said.

However, Frederiksen did not travel to the COP30 UN climate summit in Brazil — even though Denmark holds the rotating presidency of the European Union — in order to focus on the municipal election campaign at home.

Frederiksen has also been vocal in her defence of Greenland, reaffirming the sovereignty of the Danish autonomous territory coveted by US President Donald Trump.

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