Elections in Denmark

oscarBravo

The general election for the Folketinget (parliament) is being held today in Denmark. I happen to be in Denmark this week, so - on the off-chance that anyone's interested - I'll give a foreigner's-eye view of events.

So far the red bloc (left-wing, ranging from centrist social democrats similar to our Labour party to near-communists) have the lead, and it looks like the next PM will be a social democrat. The deputy PM, which is also traditionally the foreign minister, will probably be the leader of the Socialist People's Party, which is not dissimilar to our own SWP. It will be interesting to see how he gets on in the role when Denmark assumes the EU presidency next year, given that he doesn't speak English and wants Denmark to leave NATO.

The blue bloc is led by the confusingly-named "Venstre" (which means "Left"), and also includes the traditional Conservatives (whose support has collapsed in recent years) and the Danish People's Party, which is broadly similar to the BNP in outlook.

My hosts will be voting this morning, so I'll go with them to the polling station and see how much I'm allowed to observe. Polls close at 8pm (they open at 9am - imagine the outcry if we had those polling hours!) and the electoral system is a lot simpler than ours, so we should have a result by morning.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Cool, let us know how results go please

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Cork boy 55

Any info on Danish banks?

I understand they going thru a pretty rough patch,
Not getting SFA coverage here because they are not eurozone IMO

Mr.Micro

Danish bacon and danish pastry are what Denmark is famous for and not much else. A bit on the dull side with few smiley faces.

oscarBravo

The supervisor at the polling station let me have a look at the ballot paper when it was explained to him that I was a foreigner with an interest in Danish politics. It's a long piece of paper with the name of each political party followed by a list of candidates for that party. You can place a single X on the ballot, beside either a party name or a candidate name.

When I said earlier that the electoral system is simpler than ours, it's probably fairer to say that the counting system is simpler. There is proportional representation with a partial list system. Any party that gains 2% of the vote is constitutionally guaranteed representation in Parliament. Of the 179 seats, 135 are filled by direct election, 40 are filled from party lists and two each are elected by the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

The polls closed 20 minutes ago and the first results are starting to come in. Exit polls indicated a bit of an upset for Socialdemokraterne (the Social Democrats), with weaker polling than expected. The swing seems to be towards the hard-left, with Socialistisk Folkeparti (the Socialist People's Party) and Enhedslisten (the Red/Green Alliance) picking up most of their lost votes. This indicates a fairly substantial shift to the left since the last elections in 2007, which in turn showed a shift to the left (but not enough to get the Red Bloc into government).

It's hard to say exactly why there's a swing to the left, but it seems to be a fairly standard reaction to the financial crisis - the capitalists got us into this mess, now we'll see if the Socialists can get us out of it. Some of the hard-left parties in particular are making a lot of very populist noise, with Enhedslisten apparently saying that the owner of Maersk (the giant shipping line) should have his wealth confiscated and redistributed.

I'm getting a fairly blue-tinged perspective in this house, as the head of the family is a retired accountant who built a large practice, sold his share in it and is living a comfortable (but far from extravagant) retirement on the proceeds of a lifetime of hard-working capitalism. I'll try to pick up as much commentary from various sources as I can, but my Danish is still pretty minimal.

mike65

Don't forget Lego and insulin Denmark is the sort of country Ireland should have aspired to be rather than something between New Zealand and Scotland.

oscarBravo

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

Any info on Danish banks?

I understand they going thru a pretty rough patch,
Not getting SFA coverage here because they are not eurozone IMO

I think banks everywhere are suffering the same problems for the same reasons. They're not in as bad a shape as Irish banks, not having helped fuel an insane property bubble, but they're not immune to the global tsunami either.

I'll find out more and get back to you.

Mr.Micro wrote: »

Danish bacon and danish pastry are what Denmark is famous for and not much else. A bit on the dull side with few smiley faces.

Spend a lot of time in Denmark, do you?

Mr.Micro

oscarBravo wrote: »

Spend a lot of time in Denmark, do you?

No need to be so tetchy. I meant my comments to be light hearted, and I mean no disrespect to Denmark, but its hardly a heavyweight nation (like ourselves) in the eurozone.

oscarBravo

Mr.Micro wrote: »

No need to be so tetchy. I meant my comments to be light hearted, and I mean no disrespect to Denmark, but its hardly a heavyweight nation (like ourselves) in the eurozone.

It will be interesting to see how Denmark's decision with respect to the Euro works out in the long run, but they spent a metric buttload of their reserves propping up the Krone when the Euro wobbled last year.

Denmark is a lovely country full of wonderful people (and a fair smattering of asshats, like every other country). It has a strong economy built on solid fundamentals (unlike some Eurozone heavyweights), but a little bit too much sense of entitlement in some respects.

Also, they invented Lego, which makes them pretty much completely awesome.

Mr.Micro

oscarBravo wrote: »

It will be interesting to see how Denmark's decision with respect to the Euro works out in the long run, but they spent a metric buttload of their reserves propping up the Krone when the Euro wobbled last year.

Denmark is a lovely country full of wonderful people (and a fair smattering of asshats, like every other country). It has a strong economy built on solid fundamentals (unlike some Eurozone heavyweights), but a little bit too much sense of entitlement in some respects.

Also, they invented Lego, which makes them pretty much completely awesome.

From what I know it is a very independent minded country, a little bit right wing. I agree with you that it may prove interesting with regards to the Euro. A few weeks ago those countries in the Eurozone but not having the Euro were patting themselves on the back as the euro was in crisis, but if as a nation you are continually propping up your own currency, sooner or later reserves will be exhausted. I was just reading that the country is hovering around recession and one party is calling for austerity measures and another to spend its way out. Polar opposites.

When you say, "but a little bit too much sense of entitlement in some respects" what do you mean?

http://www.news24.com/World/News/Denmark-seen-swinging-to-left-in-poll-20110912

matthew8

mike65 wrote: »

Don't forget Lego and insulin Denmark is the sort of country Ireland should have aspired to be rather than something between New Zealand and Scotland.

New Zealand's south island is pretty much Scotland so being inbetween New Zealand and Scotland would pretty much be no different to New Zealand. Why don't we just aspire to be a country that has a strong manufacturing industry AND farmers who can send their lamb around the world without subsidies?

Can anyone fill me in these parties' stances on the issues? It's also strange that BNP-lite count as conservative in Denmark, considering the BNP are labour-lite.

Manach

matthew8 wrote: »

. Why don't we just aspire to be a country that has a strong manufacturing industry AND farmers who can send their lamb around the world without subsidies?

and field a world cup winning rugby team (while we are wishing )

Dr Galen

matthew8 wrote: »

New Zealand's south island is pretty much Scotland so being inbetween New Zealand and Scotland would pretty much be no different to New Zealand. Why don't we just aspire to be a country that has a strong manufacturing industry AND farmers who can send their lamb around the world without subsidies?

Can anyone fill me in these parties' stances on the issues? It's also strange that BNP-lite count as conservative in Denmark, considering the BNP are labour-lite.

This post and the one above the compares us to a cross between Scotland and NZ raise a really interesting question. One that I think might be thread worthy all on it's own....

As for Denmark, I really liked my time there a few years ago. Seemed to have a good standard of pubic services, things seemed just to work, as you would expect up in Nordic land. A lovely bunch of people I thought too, quite a friendly bunch. I did get a feeling of entitlement too though, can't quite put my finger on why I thought that though. Very interesting to see their shift towards the Hard Left though, a sign of things to come perhaps?

Any further results yet?

oscarBravo

On the sense of entitlement thing, it's hard to put a finger on exactly what I mean.

There's a sort of traditional set of values in Denmark that are centred on the concept of equality. Nobody is supposed to be any better or worse than anyone else; self-deprecation is frowned upon in much the same way as self-aggrandisement. It's considered slightly bad form to live in too fancy a house or drive too expensive a car.

The country has one of the biggest welfare states in the world, and a great deal of income equality. In many respects it's a social-democratic ideal, but it's hard to shake the feeling that Danes see the benefits they get from the state as their God-given birthright, rather than as the result of some fairly hefty wealth distribution.

Income taxes are pretty high. VRT is up to 180% (and we thought we had it bad!). Much of Denmark's wealth comes from successful industries like Maersk and Arla, and yet people are voting for parties that are complaining that there is still too much inequality - one of the parties that's making electoral gains today wants to close down all private hospitals, for example.

I guess what I'm talking about is a failure on the part of many Danes to recognise that they've done pretty well out of a mixed economy, with a balance that's already fairly heavily slanted towards socialism, but largely dependent on capitalism as the actual engine room of the welfare state. The socialists would have people believe that they would get even more benefit out of the successful Danish industries if the fat cats weren't living it up at the top of the food chain, and - despite their already very high standard of living - many people seem to be listening to that message.

I hope that makes sense.

The coverage is so annoying that it's turned off at the moment, but it's looking like the red bloc's margin of victory might be slim enough that Socialdemokraterne could be dependent on Faroe Islanders and/or Greenlanders for support. That's a potentially interesting development in its own right, because the fiercely nationalist Danes don't consider those people to be Danish, and may resent any concessions that the udlændinge try to obtain in return for their support.

irishh_bob

mike65 wrote: »

Don't forget Lego and insulin Denmark is the sort of country Ireland should have aspired to be rather than something between New Zealand and Scotland.

apart from the fact that our weather is similar to scotland and our cows are similar to new zealands , how exactly is ireland comparable to either

oscarBravo

OK, latest prediction is 88 seats for the red bloc versus 87 for blue. That doesn't count the four Faroe Island and Greenland seats, although they tend to lean slightly red. This really is a close one - although Copenhagen takes longest to count, and also tends to lean red, so it's not over yet.

In other news, Venstre have rallied and look like actually gaining a seat. This will leave them in the unusual position of being the largest party in Parliament, but leading the opposition. Interesting times.

I should have a pretty much final result by midnight, which is 11pm at home.

oscarBravo

Oh yeah - the Conservatives, who used to be one of the political powerhouses in this country, have been annihilated. They will be the smallest party in Parliament, by the looks of things.

oscarBravo

Some more updates. The prediction is 89/86, which is a slightly more comfortable majority, but still pretty snug (depending on the overseas seats).

What's interesting is that the cracks seem to be starting to show in the red bloc already. I just watched a fiery speech from the leader of Enhedslisten (who, apart from being rather easy on the eyes, is by far the best orator of the leaders I've seen so far) decrying the fact that the red bloc's victory is dependent on Det Radikale Venstre (who are sort of the Danish Lib Dems, from what I gather), because they're not "red enough". Enhedslisten are one of the stories of this election, tripling their seats from the last election.

Socialistisk Folkeparti, on the other hand, are losing a third of their seats, but count it a victory nonetheless as it will be their first time ever in government.

On the question of why the swing to the left: an interesting aspect of it is the fact that the second-biggest party in the blue bloc is Dansk Folkeparti, the ultra-nationalists. Despite winning some 12% of the vote, they are a deeply divisive party, with their sometimes downright racist rhetoric being very off-putting to many otherwise blue voters. Radikale are actually more blue- than red-leaning, being a basically pragmatic centrist party, but refuse point-blank to enter coalition with DFP.

On the topic of Danes and their worldview, I was trying to think of the term Janteloven earlier. It explains a lot.

oscarBravo

All over bar the shoutin', as they say. The current PM has conceded (with good grace, and emphasising the fact that he's leading the largest party into opposition), and Helle Thorning-Schmidt has made her victory speech to the party faithful.

The tally stands at 89-86, and it looks like the four overseas seats will be evenly split. A couple of factoids:

• The new PM is Denmark's first ever female in the role, and is married to Neil Kinnock's son.
• Despite leading the new government, the Social Democrats achieved their worst result in 108 years today, losing one seat.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen (the outgoing PM) made a point of mentioning that when Venstre took power ten years ago, they inherited a substantial deficit, which they had converted to a surplus by the start of the financial crisis; and that Denmark was one of the countries least damaged by the implosion of the markets. It will be interesting to see what the red bloc do with the economy over the next four or five years.

Foghladh

A little off subject maybe, but since you are there

Has there been any reference to the Irish situation in any of their pre or post electioneering or any indication of how we are viewed in a Danish/European sense? I ask in the context of another thread which mentioned our aspiring to the nordic model. I know in Ireland we will put ourselves at the centre of a crisis because it affects us but is there an opinion on the ground there? How are we seen basically is what I'm asking

oscarBravo

Foghladh wrote: »

Has there been any reference to the Irish situation in any of their pre or post electioneering or any indication of how we are viewed in a Danish/European sense? I ask in the context of another thread which mentioned our aspiring to the nordic model. I know in Ireland we will put ourselves at the centre of a crisis because it affects us but is there an opinion on the ground there? How are we seen basically is what I'm asking

Honestly? They're not talking about us. The election was fought on the basis of domestic issues, and we're simply not one of their concerns.

Something interesting I found out this morning: the counts are performed locally at the polling stations on the evening of the election. The ballots are sent to regional count centres (Århus, in our case) for checking, but it's largely a formality. But here's the interesting part: last night, they only counted votes for parties, so even if someone voted for a specific candidate, it was simply counted as a vote for that candidate's party.

Today the checked ballots are sorted by party and simply handed over to the parties themselves to count the preferences for individual candidates. That's the basis on which the individual seats are filled. The hacker in me immediately sees a weakness: you're depending on the party you voted for to respect your vote for a given candidate, because up to this point the votes are counted and checked by representatives of all parties.

I pointed out this possible flaw to my hosts, and they seemed skeptical that a party would ever do anything but honour the wishes of their voters. This may be the case, but it still strikes me as a weak point in the electoral system.

Mr.Micro

oscarBravo wrote: »

Something interesting I found out this morning: the counts are performed locally at the polling stations on the evening of the election. The ballots are sent to regional count centres (Århus, in our case) for checking, but it's largely a formality. But here's the interesting part: last night, they only counted votes for parties, so even if someone voted for a specific candidate, it was simply counted as a vote for that party's candidate.

Today the checked ballots are sorted by party and simply handed over to the parties themselves to count the preferences for individual candidates. That's the basis on which the individual seats are filled. The hacker in me immediately sees a weakness: you're depending on the party you voted for to respect your vote for a given candidate, because up to this point the votes are counted and checked by representatives of all parties.

I pointed out this possible flaw to my hosts, and they seemed skeptical that a party would ever do anything but honour the wishes of their voters. This may be the case, but it still strikes me as a weak point in the electoral system.

Cripes, such a system would never work here, as many of the politicians and party members are a bit short of the honour bit. I do like and admire the integrity of the Danish and their belief in honour though. We could do with some of that here.

Nodin

oscarBravo wrote: »

..............
I pointed out this possible flaw to my hosts, and they seemed skeptical that a party would ever do anything but honour the wishes of their voters. ..............

So close geographically, yet a mindset seemingly from another universe.......

Batsy

Mr.Micro wrote: »

Danish bacon and danish pastry are what Denmark is famous for and not much else. A bit on the dull side with few smiley faces.

The Danes are also famous for being, like the Swedes and the British, wise enough to not adopt the Euro.

oscarBravo

Batsy wrote: »

The Danes are also famous for being, like the Swedes and the British, wise enough to not adopt the Euro.

An expensive decision in some respects, as I pointed out earlier. The exchange rate is pretty much pegged to the Euro as far as I can tell, which negates much of the advantage of staying out of it.

View

oscarBravo wrote: »

Something interesting I found out this morning: the counts are performed locally at the polling stations on the evening of the election. The ballots are sent to regional count centres (Århus, in our case) for checking, but it's largely a formality. But here's the interesting part: last night, they only counted votes for parties, so even if someone voted for a specific candidate, it was simply counted as a vote for that candidate's party.

Today the checked ballots are sorted by party and simply handed over to the parties themselves to count the preferences for individual candidates. That's the basis on which the individual seats are filled. The hacker in me immediately sees a weakness: you're depending on the party you voted for to respect your vote for a given candidate, because up to this point the votes are counted and checked by representatives of all parties.

I pointed out this possible flaw to my hosts, and they seemed skeptical that a party would ever do anything but honour the wishes of their voters. This may be the case, but it still strikes me as a weak point in the electoral system.

You'd probably find that the individual candidates on the ballot paper or at least those with a reasonable chance of getting elected keep a close eye on the counting to ensure that it is done properly.

If the party got 10 mandates (=seats), candidates #1-7 are pretty much guaranteed election even before the party looks at the ballots. #8 on and the counting gets more critical and it is then in the candidates' interests to make sure they, at worst, fill the last mandate.

Personally, I think our counting system is a bit weird. Everyone makes a big deal out of whether it is candidate X or Y from the same party that gets elected in a particular constituency. Yet, as both candidate X and Y would vote the party line due to the party whips calling the shots all the time, it is almost irrelevant which of them gets elected.

oscarBravo

View wrote: »

You'd probably find that the individual candidates on the ballot paper or at least those with a reasonable chance of getting elected keep a close eye on the counting to ensure that it is done properly.

If the party got 10 mandates (=seats), candidates #1-7 are pretty much guaranteed election even before the party looks at the ballots. #8 on and the counting gets more critical and it is then in the candidates' interests to make sure they, at worst, fill the last mandate.

I actually agree that skullduggery is fairly unlikely, but it is a theoretical security hole.

Personally, I think our counting system is a bit weird. Everyone makes a big deal out of whether it is candidate X or Y from the same party that gets elected in a particular constituency. Yet, as both candidate X and Y would vote the party line due to the party whips calling the shots all the time, it is almost irrelevant which of them gets elected.

Fair point, but I think that's more a reflection on the whip system - which has no basis in our constitution - rather than the counting system, which does.

View

oscarBravo wrote: »

I actually agree that skullduggery is fairly unlikely, but it is a theoretical security hole.

Internal party rivalry tends to be even more intense than inter-party ones (Up to the last election, the two large parties could pretty much guarantee they'd each have candidates elected in a constituency, the real battle - in our system - was the "internal" party one of who'd fill those party seat(s)).

oscarBravo wrote: »

Fair point, but I think that's more a reflection on the whip system - which has no basis in our constitution - rather than the counting system, which does.

PR-STV was actually invented to reduce the role of the party system and, in particular, the whip system! Our politicians though operate it even tighter than the previous FPTP party system.

oscarBravo

I'm leaving Denmark early tomorrow, so I'll post some closing thoughts and observations.

First, some of the media reaction. One of the tabloids had this front page:



The reference is to the leader of the Social Democrats, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, and the leaders of two of the other parties in her coalition, Margrethe Vestager (Radikale) and Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen (Enhedslisten).

As an aside, Ekstra Bladet has "page 9" girls where English tabloids have page 3 girls; on page 9 of yesterday's issue they featured Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen (albeit fully dressed). You can decide for yourself how tasteful that is - I've commented myself that she's not unattractive, but there are limits.

Yesterday's Jyllands Posten Morgenavisen had this cartoon on the front page:



The battered-looking character is Villy Søvndal, leader of SF (the Socialist People's Party). There seems to be a bit of friction emerging from the negotiations among the coalition; Villy has worked hard with Helle over the past three years to engineer the red victory, but took a beating in the polls, and the two parties whose stars are on the rise don't seem content to take a background role while the party that lost a third of its support takes the credit for the victory.

Finally, here's an interesting map of how the country voted geographically:



The red vote is heavily concentrated on the population centres of Copenhagen, Århus, Odense and Ålborg. These are also, notably, university towns. The smaller inset maps show corresponding red/blue divisions over past elections.

One last thought on the swing between red and blue: I mentioned earlier that there had been a swing to the left in response to the rise of the extreme nationalist DFP. Digging deeper into this, it seems that DFP's rise was largely a response to an earlier Social Democrat initiative to dramatically relax immigration restrictions in Denmark, to the extent of giving cash handouts to immigrants and making social welfare much more easily obtainable from the get-go. I don't know to what extent this is true; it could be a toned-down version of our own taxi driver tales of asylum seekers getting free cars.

Lockstep

Fantastic thread.

Denerick

This is a very interesting thread - like a travel book intended for politics nerds.

oscarBravo

Looks like Ekstra Bladet don't believe in honeymoon periods. (The article is obviously in Danish, but an online translation tool such as the one built-in to Chrome will give the sense of it.)

Basically, they've accused Johanna Schmidt-Nielsen of the Red-Green Alliance of lying about only taking the average industrial wage, because she is also getting generous tax-free expenses on top of her salary.

Strikes a couple of chords back home, I would have said.

dsmythy

Batsy wrote: »

The Danes are also famous for being, like the Swedes and the British, wise enough to not adopt the Euro.

Even the wisest have their painful flaws.

oscarBravo wrote: »

Some of the hard-left parties in particular are making a lot of very populist noise, with Enhedslisten apparently saying that the owner of Maersk (the giant shipping line) should have his wealth confiscated and redistributed.

oscarBravo wrote: »

Much of Denmark's wealth comes from successful industries like Maersk and Arla, and yet people are voting for parties that are complaining that there is still too much inequality - one of the parties that's making electoral gains today wants to close down all private hospitals, for example.