Denmark votes in the closest election in years

Denmark celebrate this tuesday Parliamentary election marked by the equality between the blocks and a fragmented political landscape. The elections have been advanced several months by a political scandal linked to the management of the pandemic coronavirus.

Denmark It has been one of the European countries that presents the best numbers in its management of covid and that has imposed the fewest restrictions, but with a mole: the slaughter by the end of 2020 of millions of mink due to a health alert for a mutation that could compromise future vaccines.

The social democratic government of the prime minister Mette Fredriksen ordered the measure, which meant the temporary closure of one million dollar industrywithout having coverage to do so, which caused a legal change on the fly between criticism from the opposition and breeders.

“Very critical”

A parliamentary commission concluded in June that the actions of the Government it was “very critical” and saw grounds for opening disciplinary cases against several high-ranking officials, and although he considered the prime minister’s statements to be “grossly misleading”admitted that it was not possible to know if he was aware of the lack of legal coverage.

Frederiksen She received an official reprimand from Parliament but avoided greater evils thanks to the support of her allies, although pressure from one of those parties forced her to advance the elections.

In the election campaign, the “case of the minks” It had some relevance at the beginning but has ended up marginalized by other issues such as health and measures against the crisis.

new political forces

Until fourteen games they attend the elections and a dozen have real options to enter Parliament. Two of them could be decisive in determining victory in a complex scenario due to the equality indicated by the polls between the centre-left bloc of Frederiksen and the right wing opposition.

The two new political forces have in common having been founded by two ex-weight figures of the Liberal Party. In back of Democrats of Denmark there is former Integration Minister Inger Støjberg, who less than a year ago was sentenced to prison for ororder the illegal separation of refugee couples in the first impeachment trial in Denmark in three decades.

The moderate It is the personal project of former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussenwhich is presented as a center force without positioning itself within either of the two blocks and whose unstoppable rise in the polls could give it the role of referee.

Candidates for prime minister

In Denmark it is common for parties to be grouped into two blocks, left and right, and that each present a candidate for prime minister, corresponding to the strongest party. That custom has been broken this year, as conservative Søren Pape Poulsen ran for the post in August, when polls put him ahead of liberal Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, although the situation has reversed in recent weeks.

The former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen He has denied aspiring to lead a government, but he has been allowing himself to be loved as his party was rising in the polls and rivals and political analysts already consider him a fourth candidate.

Greenland and the Faroe Islands

The danish parliament It is made up of 179 seats, of which four correspond to the autonomous territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. MPs from the overseas territories have been decisive in previous elections, such as in 1998, when the Social Democrat Poul Nyrup Rasmussen won an unexpected victory thanks to the last-minute support of a Faroese parliamentarian.

Related news

Although the legislative elections are officially celebrated on the 1stin a part of the territory of the Kingdom of Denmark the vote will take place the day before.

The coincidence of that date with the day on which the dead at sea are officially remembered in the Faroe Islands, whose main industry is fishing, prompted a request from the regional authorities Copenhagen has admitted.

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