The local elections are local, but they reflect the temperature in our national policy.
Rudderless DF lost at sea
Most striking is that the Danish People’s Party (DF), the largest blue party six years ago, lost more than 60 municipal council seats. Its leader, Kristian Thulesen Dahl, has resigned, and a new chairman will be elected in January in the hope that the tide can be turned. It is ironic that January is coming too early for the candidates who come to mind first.
Morten Messerschmidt has appealed his verdict on fraud and could lose his seat in the Folketing if he is found guilty again. While the apostate ex-minister Inge Støjberg, right now up to the neck in a constitutional case accused of unconstitutional baby-bridal separations, needs four months of DF membership to be eligible for election.
The outsider is Martin Henriksen. Fired from his consulting job in the party for disloyalty, he advocates further austerity for foreigners as a means of fighting New Civil.
DF can not be blamed that other parties have adopted its immigration policy, but is only to blame for its bizarre blackmail of the former Left government over conditions such as the relocation of the radio station 24/7 away from Copenhagen. Worst was its insistence on a railway line to Billund Airport and a bypass to Mariager – without documented need, but the personal whims of local DF heights.
Denmark’s first homosexual prime minister?
Can a new leader save DF? Now, conservatives have the t-shirt. Just eight years ago, it scored just 2.6 percent in opinion polls. This time it is the undisputed winner with over 10 percent of the national votes and the mayor’s golden chain in more cities than ever (even though it lost Frederiksberg after 112 years in power in a row).
The Conservatives’ proud gay leader Pape Poulsen, who has lost weight and gained support, is today at the head of the largest blue party according to the national polls. It will be interesting to see if he can come up with the more liberal foreign policy he needs to reach out to the Radicals and make them swing from red to blue.
Saturate through the mixer
That may be the reality in 18 months at the next general election (mandatory by June 4, 2023), as the Prime Minister, impressively during the pandemic, loses ground for the first time in his term.
There is no end to the fact that Minkgate and Mette are being grilled by the press over deleted text messages that may have contained interesting conversations between those in power. They may, for all we know, be completely innocent, but no one knows, and that is not good for the straight upper lip she shows.
It is not surprising that the Social Democrats had their worst election result in decades, even though it still has power in Copenhagen and several other strongholds.
The lost truckload of votes for the Unity List’s call for a revolution in Copenhagen – it proposed removing 30 percent of all parking spaces! – but the extreme left party could never expect the majority needed to take the top post.
It was daring, but ultimately suicidal.
Source: The Nordic Page