The political system – the short version

Christiansborg – The Danish Parliament

Denmark is a so-called constitutional monarchy. Today that means that the Queen only have a representative function. The government is based on parliamentary elections.

Denmark is a part of the European Union so the Danish parliament and government can best be understood as something between a City Council and a Translation Service. Parliament and government are obliged to follow the decisions made in the Union and one of their main tasks is to interpret and transpose those decisions.

The parliament is called the Folketinget and the Folketing is housed on Christiansborg, a castle in the Central City of Copenhagen, the Danish capital.

Politicians and parties

In the Folketing you’ll find the Danish politicians – ambitious people who want power, influence, prestige and a post in the next government – or at least want to receive the monthly salary for as long time as possible.

Probably even some of them have other and better intentions than their own personal career.

The politicians can be comical and they can be very boring to listen to, but they can also be rather harmful, as their decisions have a great impact on ordinarily peoples everyday life, future, hope and possibilities.

The politicians are organised in political parties. After the elections held in november 2007, 8 political parties were represented in the parliament. The number has since then from time to time changed as single politicians has left political parties and joined or formed other parties, or just found other and better career opportunities

The two biggest political parties in Denmark are the Social Democrats, and Venstre

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The government and its coalition partners

By the 2001 parliamentary election Venstre became the biggest party in Denmark (measured in votes) and the government was turned in the hands of Venstre. Venstres mandate to govern the country was confirmed by the 2005 and 2007 elections.

Venstre had its offspring in the peasant movements in the 19th century and has traditionally had its strongest base in the rural, and more sparsely populated areas. Starting in the 1980s, the party began expanding into urban regions as well, and is today well established in all regions. Among the Venstre voters men with a higher than average income are overrepresented.

Venstre leads the government

It is so in Denmark that typically the biggest party (measured in votes) forms the government eventually in coalition with other parties, but it does not need to be so. What is important is that no majority in the parliament is against the government.
So in theory – if no one else wants the job – the smallest party could form the government…

The head of the government (the Statsminister – prime minister) is Lars Løkke Rasmussen who took over the post after Anders Fogh Rasmussen in april 2009  (both members of Venstre).

As a party Venstre had during the first years of governing a great success in getting the Danish voters to believe that the party is the better administrator of the so called Danish Welfare society, a post that was former held by the Social Democrats.

Venstre forms the government in coalition with Det Konservative Folkeparti. ( The Conservative Peoples Party ).

The Conservative Peoples Party is a party that stands for more tradionally conservative values and it is a party with solid roots in the upper parts of the society.

The government is supported by Dansk Folkeparti ( The Danish People’s Party ).

The Danish People’s Party who was first elected in 2001 was strengthened by the 2005 and 2007  elections and got about 14% of the votes in 2007 .

The party has combined demands for social security and welfare for first and foremost older people with nationalistic phrases. Some of this party’s key issues is to cut down foreign aid and stop the possibility for foreigners to settle in Denmark.

The Danish Peoples Party find their voters among the lowest income households and less educated groups in the danish society. Voters that seems to believe a cooperation with the two other parties mentioned above combined with a great deal of xenophobia will be for their own benefit.

The government and its coalition party controls the majority of seats in parliament.

A new party

After the 2007 election a new party – Liberal alliance – has established itself. Liberal Alliance has three members in the parliament, who all comes from other parties, and the party has a very strong support from the Danish investmentbank Saxo Bank.
The partys politics, which is based on a fundamentalist neoliberal ideology, can best be described as a populist mix of simplifications of a kind that of course always will have an appeal to some of the more unaware.

Opposition

Traditionally there have always been a lot of cooperation between government and opposition in the Danish parliamentary system
One of the reasons for this is that the governments do not always control a majority of the seats in the parlament and therefore needs to gain support from the other political parties.
How much cooperation one should expect to find depends on the situation, i. e. the possibilities to make majority coalitions in the parliament.

In the period since 2001 the majority could be obtained with only one coalition partner The Danish Peoples Party, and it is still the case. Should the government want to make other coalitions it will need to do it with either their traditionally “enemy” the Social Democrats, or at least two other parties.

The Social Democrats has traditionally been rooted in the workers movements and unions of the late 19th. century, and had been an important factor in the formation of the Danish Society as it is known today, participating in a majority of Danish governments in the 20th century. But the partys support from the voters has declined since the nineteenseventies and are now on level with the elections in the beginning of the 20th century.

Besides the Social Democrats the opposition in the parliament consist of the Socialistisk Folkeparti (Socialist Peoples Party), Det Radikale Venstre (The Radical Left) – neither radical nor leftist but rather a liberal party with some centrum oriented values and Enhedslisten (United List) – a coalition of different socialist groups: communists, trotskyists, left socialists etc.

Even if there are great differences among thoose three oppositional parties they have all in common that they are elitist parties.

The United List has the most well educated group of voters among all parties, and the voters of Radikale Venstre are the voters with the highest average household income. The third opposition party mentioned here – Socialist Peoples Party – is somewhere in between, their voters are not as well educated, and their average house hold income are not that big as the voters of the Radical Left and the United Left, but anyway…

Det Radikale Venstre obtained a great success in the 2005 election and almost dobbled the number of mandates in the parliament.

Among the partys key issues in that election campaign was a suggested tax reform that would give their key voters an enormous reduction in taxes paid, on the cost of more less earning households.

The economic greediness and egoism was successfully combined with well meaning phrases on environmental issues and development aid to third world countries.

As can be seen in the election results the Radikale Venstre lost their votes again in 2007, mostly thank to a split in the party where a few members builded a new party called New Alliance.

New Alliance gained a lot of support in the polls before the elections, but it was lost in a hurry due to amateurism. The party won 5 seat in the parliament, but the party has since dissolved, like some hot air from yesterday.

The Socialist Peoples Party has worked hard to convince the establishment that they could function as a reliable coalition partner in a coming government together with the Social Democrats.

The United List plays the role as the enfant terrible who points out the problems, and say out loud what no one wants to talk about. The party is without any kind of real influence.

Sources:

Wikipedia: Folketingsvalg 2007
“Privatansatte afskriver S” in: Ugebrevet A4, 14.2.2005
“Der er byttet om på højre og venstre” in: Politiken, 6. februar 2005.