What's their
secret?
The last time Danes voted in parliamentary elections, in
2015, Europe's migration crisis was at a boiling point. Support for the
populist, anti-immigrant Danish People's Party surged to 21%, a few percentage
points behind the Social Democrats, but enough to help carry the current
center-right coalition into power.
Many voters
supporting the Danish People's Party were former Social Democrats. On taking
over as the Social Democrats' new leader shortly thereafter, Mette Frederiksen gave a hint of what was to come: "I know that
many Danes are worried about the future," she said. "Worried about
jobs, about open borders. About whether we can find a balance in immigration
policy."
In 2015, about 21,000 migrants sought
asylum in Denmark, a number that has fallen dramatically every year since. But
Denmark's demographics have been changing for decades. According to government figures, in 1980 about 1% of Danish
residents were of "non-Western background," compared with 8.5% today.
Within
months of the 2015 election, Frederiksen was expressing more specific thoughts
on migration. "In my eyes, it is neither heroic nor humane to bring so
many people here that the problems become huge in our own country," she
said in an interview on Denmark's TV2.
"Because we're not very good at integrating in Denmark, and there's
nothing to indicate that we're going to get better."
Since then,
Denmark's Social Democrats have tacked hard right on immigration. Working
closely with colleagues across the aisle in Parliament, they passed laws aimed
at sending — or keeping — refugees to their home countries, rather than
integrating them.
Their platform
includes a "Marshall Plan" for Africa, intended to stem the flow
of migration by improving conditions at the source. But Social Democratic party
members have also played a part in headline-grabbing initiatives more commonly
associated with hardliners, like a law allowing police to seize jewelry and other assets from refugees, a burqa ban and a plan to put certain rejected
asylum-seekers on an island previously used for
infectious disease research.
It's a strategy that has worked inasmuch as it has lured
voters back from the right and kept the party afloat. Largely as a result of
the Social Democrats' success in this area, the Danish People's Party is in
free fall, now with just 9% of the vote. (The party has also been hurt by the
launch of two other parties that are even more anti-immigrant, though they
remain relatively small).
But the Social Democrats' success has come at a price.
While the party's
immigration strategy has brought many right-leaning voters back into the fold,
it has also sent others fleeing further left. In fact, the Social Democrats'
26% plurality in this week's election is a pinch less than what the party won
in 2015.
Frederiksen is now in a strong position to become the
country's next prime minister, thanks to the explosive growth of the three
smaller parties in her left-wing bloc, whose votes she will need to form a
government.
Those parties have expressed support for the idea of
Frederiksen as Denmark's next leader, but their backing hinges on obtaining a
variety of concessions. Among them: more investment in childcare programs, a
stronger commitment to the environment, changes in some economic policies and —
especially — a softening of the Social Democrats' stance on immigration.
One party in particular, the Social Liberals, is in a
position to make or break a future left-wing government with its demands.
Though the party actually falls at the very center of the country's political
spectrum, it has managed to position itself as the antidote to right-wing
populism: It is pro-immigration, pro-Europe and pro-environment.
While the Social
Liberals' stated priority is to be part of a center-left government, leader
Morten Østergaard appeared lukewarm on
election night, saying, "There are many possible ways to form a
parliamentary majority after this election. ... I feel obligated to give Mette
a chance, and I've said for months that we'll do that, but it depends on how
much the political course changes."
What will follow now is a series of inter-party
negotiations that political scientists say could go on for days or even weeks.
"Rhetorically
the two sides are really juxtaposed at the moment, each in their corner of the
ring, and saying we're not going to move at all," says Aarhus University
political scientist Rune Stubager. "It will be potentially a very long
poker game."
Stubager predicts that the Social Democrats will fight to
maintain voter credibility by holding the "main lines" on immigration
— presumably some version of the current stance — while softening "bits
and pieces" with broad support. "But then, of course, the question is
what constitutes the main lines, and what are the bits and pieces that may be
changed, and that's unclear," he says.
Should discord within the left bloc prove too great to
overcome, the outgoing center-right prime minister has extended the option of a
grand coalition across the center line, which would be an unprecedented
development in Danish politics.
Until then, conservative leaders say they'll fill the popcorn
bowl, sit back and watch. No doubt Europe's Social Democrats will be doing the
same.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730286066/in-denmarks-election-a-shift-to-the-left-unlike-in-much-of-europe