COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) \u2014 Denmark\u2019s foreign minister and his centrist party are expected to decide who will lead the Scandinavian country\u2019s next government after Tuesday\u2019s parliamentary elections ended without a clear majority for any party or bloc.<\/p>\n
Center-left Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen could survive for a third term, despite a disappointing result. But she will need to negotiate a deal with the kingmaker, Foreign Minister Lars L\u00f8kke Rasmussen, if she is to lead a new coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Danes have spoken. They have given us a playing field that, to put it mildly, is a bit tricky to handle when it comes to forming a government,” Frederiksen said Wednesday. “But a government must be formed. The world out there doesn\u2019t wait for us, and it has only become even more unsettled than when the election was called.\u201d<\/p>\n
The campaign focused on bread-and-butter issues rather than the crisis over U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambitions toward Greenland.<\/p>\n
The outgoing government resigned Wednesday. Leaders from each party debated their positions in a roundtable setting and met with Danish King Frederik X to discuss the country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
Denmark\u2019s single-chamber parliament, the Folketing, is elected for a four-year term. Lawmakers from Denmark hold 175 of its seats, while two each go to representatives from thinly populated Greenland and the kingdom\u2019s other semiautonomous territory, the Faroe Islands.<\/p>\n
More than 4.3 million people were eligible to vote in a country of 6 million people. Nearly 84% of the electorate cast their ballots.<\/p>\n
Here’s what to know:<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNo party won a majority<\/p>\n
Official results showed that Frederiksen\u2019s center-left Social Democrats lost ground compared with the last election in 2022, as did her two partners in the outgoing government.<\/p>\n
No single party won a majority in parliament, which was expected. Denmark\u2019s system of proportional representation typically produces coalition governments, traditionally made up of several parties from either the \u201cred bloc\u201d on the left or the \u201cblue bloc\u201d on the right, after weeks of negotiations.<\/p>\n
Frederiksen\u2019s outgoing administration was the first in decades to straddle the left-right divide, and she said she is ready to stay on as prime minister for a third term. Her Social Democrats remained the biggest single party by some distance but Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, the best-placed center-right challenger to Frederiksen, made clear that he and his Liberal party don\u2019t intend to go into government with the Social Democrats again.<\/p>\n
Still, Danish election expert Rune Stubager believes Frederiksen will survive as prime minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it will be in a new centrist coalition or a government based mostly on votes from the red bloc, that is up to the negotiations,\u201d Stubager, who co-heads the Danish National Election Study, said Wednesday. <\/p>\n
The 48-year-old Frederiksen is known for strong support of Ukraine in its defense against Russia\u2019s invasion and for a restrictive approach to migration \u2014 continuing what has become a tradition in Danish politics.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe \u2018kingmaker\u2019 decides the next steps<\/p>\n
Because neither the left-leaning nor right-leaning blocs won a majority, L\u00f8kke Rasmussen is now in the role of kingmaker. His centrist Moderate party, with 14 lawmakers in the 179-seat parliament, is in a position to determine whether Frederiksen can serve a third term at the helm of the European Union and NATO country. It takes 90 seats to form a majority.<\/p>\n
L\u00f8kke Rasmussen called on rivals on the left and right to climb down from some of the positions they staked out in the campaign, and \u201ccome and play with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither of the blocs are able to form a majority without the support of the Moderates, making them the only real winner of the election.<\/p>\n
“I offered the other day \u2014 and it remains our position \u2014 to take responsibility for sitting down with parties on both sides of the political center line to see whether a political platform can be created, on which a government agreement could then subsequently be established,\u201d L\u00f8kke Rasmussen said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Stubager said they should be able to force concessions from each party’s campaign promises to reach their goal \u2014 a centrist government.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as I can see it, it’s not possible to form a government if all these tripwires are intact,\u201d Stubager said. \u201cSo somebody will have to go back on a promise in order for there to be a government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGreenland gave the foreign minister a stage<\/p>\n
Part of the Moderates’ success can be attributed to Trump and Greenland, Stubager said. Late last year, the party was polling poorly, but then got a major bump from L\u00f8kke Rasmussen, the government\u2019s foreign minister, through his diplomatic work to calm the tensions with the U.S. that included a headline-grabbing trip to Washington. <\/p>\n
\u201cDonald Trump put up a stage on which Lars L\u00f8kke could perform, and he performed well in the eyes of most Danes,\u201d Stubager said.<\/p>\n
Frederiksen also was banking on Greenland. Her own polls earlier this year showed an increase in support, prompting her to call the election in February \u2014 several months before she had to. She apparently hoped that her resolute image in the standoff would help her with voters.<\/p>\n
The early election was not necessarily a failed gamble, as the Social Democrats\u2019 support had been lower before the crisis spiked.<\/p>\n
Frederiksen warned in January that an American takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of NATO. But the crisis has simmered down, at least for now.<\/p>\n
Trump backed down on threats to impose tariffs on Denmark and other European countries that opposed the U.S. taking control of the vast Arctic island, and the U.S., Denmark and Greenland started technical talks on an Arctic security deal. The discussions are ongoing.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Dazio reported from Berlin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) \u2014 Denmark\u2019s foreign minister and his centrist party are expected to decide who will lead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1125,1126,1124,27,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-49703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denmark","8":"tag-ap-politics","9":"tag-ap-world-news","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-danmark","12":"tag-denmark"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116299581532899557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}