LOCAL ELECTIONS

There were a number of themes that came out of Tuesday's local elections for Denmark's 98 kommuner (local authorities) and 5 regions.

The first was a collective "fed-up'ness" with the current 3-party coalition minority national Government, reflected in the collapse of the Socialists' vote from 14.5% to 5.6%. Many of those votes went to the very left-wing Enhedslisten, up from 2.3% to 6.9%, which tends to support the Government and thereby give it a Parliamentary majority. It must be galling for the Socialists that locally, the Enhedslisten is now the bigger party.

The second trend was that although the national Government is unpopular, the main opposition party Venstre could not really take advantage. They increased their share of the vote from 24.8% to 26.6%; but after two years of opinion polls in the mid-30's, they were expecting more. The reason for that was party Chairman Lars Løkke Rasmussen's travel expenses.

The third trend was that the Social Democrats under Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt did better than expected (and many in the party had feared), falling only from 30.7% to 29.5%. Voters on its right-wing probably left and went to the opposition; but that was offset by voters on its left-wing who ditched the Socialists and could not stomach Enhedslisten. Furthermore, they retained the mayor's office in all four of the countries biggest cities, Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg.

The fourth was the continuing rise of the Danish People's Party, a rise which has been almost continuous since its founding in 1995. The DPP is now the third largest party in local politics, and secured its first ever mayoral office, in Copenhagen (the capital has a super-mayor and a number of mayors).

The mayor's office is powerful in Denmark, since it is the only full-time job on the council and the mayor sets the political agenda. Who gets it is decided by a majority, and since it is very rare for one party to get an absolute majority, coalitions are the norm. Because of the intricacies of those coalitions, the Social Democrats and Venstre tend to end up with most of the mayors. In 2009, it was 49-31 (i.e. 80 out of 98); this time, it has turned around and is now 33-48. Most of the rest are held by the Conservatives, in local pockets of affluence. Despite their vote's falling from 11% to 8.6%, they held all of them, so they were another happy party.    

Pulling all that together, it looks as if the national election in 2 years' time will be closer than it might have been. Local councils have much more influence in Denmark than (say) the U.K., and the Social Democrats' showing in particular will have done the Government a power of good. It is still looking like there will be a change of Government, but not a landslide change.

Walter Blotscher