The results of yesterday's local elections in Denmark are in.
The Red-Green alliance, a well-meaning demsoc party that is the furthest left you get in Danish politics, became the largest party in the city of Copenhagen and on the island of Bornholm. This is the first time the party becomes the largest in a municipality. However their support support for a leftist mayor could not be found in either of the two municipalities but the Red-Greens were part of the coalitions behind a succdem lord mayor in Copenhagen and a conservative mayor in Bornholm. In Copenhagen they managed to get two out of six alderman positions instead of the one they currently have for their support and in Bornholm they got the post of vice mayor the construction of a new city hall stopped and the municipal budget reopened.
The good result for the Red-Greens was offset by the collapse of the green Alternative party which has been destroyed by internal infighting.
The succdems did poorly although not catastrophically. Loosing the position of largest party in their traditional stronghold of Copenhagen was a humiliation for them and might spark internal criticism of the "anti-elitist" and "anti-city" rhetoric they have been using for the last few years. Their bad results are likely influenced by increasing criticism of the during succdem government who has gotten themselves into a public scandal due to culling all minks in the country last year without a legal basis as well as the destruction of evidence incriminating them in the case.
On the far right the fascist with a succdem vibe Danish People's Party had a catastrophic election, losing more than half of their votes. A lot of those were picked up by the fascist with a libertarian vibe New Right party but in total the far right got fewer votes than last time.
The Liberal Party, that traditionally is the largest party on the right wing did poorly last time but managed to prevent further losses. Meanwhile the conservative party, helped by the crisis of the fascists as well as the liberals had a good election although losing control of their traditional stronghold of Frederiksberg in Copenhagen.
As is tradition, I’ll just come out and ask the question that’s on everybody’s minds. Is this good or bad for the current anti-imperialist trend?
The right did better, which sucks, but it doesn't matter so much when they did it at the expense of the succdems.
Honestly, the performance by the Social Democrats has been fucking terrible. Their absolute embarasment has only been slightly alleviated by the fact that the right also had a horrible election in general. As a broad coalition, the right did pretty badly, even if the conservative party seems to be doing exceptionally well. Also, the conservative party losing Frederiksberg will be the funniest thing to happen for a while. Losing their stranglehold on that county for the last 112 years will most likely just make them worse, but it's funny to see them seethe.
It is slightly good. The Red-Greens will gain more influence and become more confident from this and although they are annoyingly liberal at times they are the least horrible option in Danish electoral politics.
The post-election agreements dividing posts in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg should also serve as a reminder to the left. The succdems could never dream of being the junior partners in a coalition with the left, they will rather side with the right than letting a leftist be in charge.
One can hope the election leads to a more confident, less illusioned left.
Overall the succdems and the far right did poorly. An optimistic interpretation of this could be a declining interest in racism among voters. However although they cannibalised their votes from the Danish People's Party the fascist New Right went from having a single councillor in a single municipality to having a significant presence in local politics. They will feel emboldened by this.
I see, but not really what I was asking for. Are there any implications for foreign policy? NATO?
It's local elections so not really. All it does for that is giving slightly better vibes.
Big thanks for posting this. Quality report. Denmark is a really interesting country politically, my impression is that it sees itself as neither fully integrated politically with europe or the nordics.
I don't understand what happened in Copenhagen: if the red-greens are the largest party, why don't they get to pich the mayor? Was there a different election for the office of mayor and for the city council? Didn't they have a candidat of there own for mayor?
Voters only vote for city councillors and the council itself then appoints a mayor, committee members etc.
A few hours after the election the votes have been counted and the parties starts to negotiate an agreement on how to divide the posts. This makes it possible for a small party to have great influence by shopping for coalitions.
In Copenhagen the succdems did just that and threatened to make an agreement with the right wing if they didn't get the lord mayorship. The remaining centre-left parties could have brought the Red-Greens to power but didn't want to, so instead of being left completely outside a right-wing coalition the Red-Greens decided to take part in a succdem-led one and get whatever influence they can from that.
The lord mayorship in Copenhagen was always a longshot. The political system is still infested with anti-communist brainworms and the succdems prefers a scorched earth to letting leftists have power. The results in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg were humiliating to the succdems, who have always seen themselves as the one true political arm of the labour movement and is likely to cause cracks in the support for the party leadership who has embarked on a "heartland salt of the earth common man vs. big city elitist"-type rhetoric.
In Copenhagen the succdems did just that and threatened to make an agreement with the right wing if they didn’t get the lord mayorship. The remaining centre-left parties could have brought the Red-Greens to power but didn’t want to, so instead of being left completely outside a right-wing coalition the Red-Greens decided to take part in a succdem-led one and get whatever influence they can from that.
That's an unfortunate strategy from the red-greens. They should've let them do that, and become the sole opposition party against a centre-left-right-coalition, about which they could then say: "there is no difference between the parties, we are the only left project" next time. I'm afraid that in the current agreement there are two possible scenario's (1) the coalition does good things, and the social-democrats get all the credit for it (2) the coalition doesn't do good things because the social-democrats got the most powerfull position, and manages to outmanoeuvre them, so the electorate of the red-greens starts to dissipate in the following election. I hope I'm wrong.
Btw, what was the role of Socialistisk Folkeparti in all this? Did they support the social-democratic mayor, or were they willing to vote for a red-green mayor?
Btw, what was the role of Socialistisk Folkeparti in all this?
SF started out as a Eurocommunist party but has since transformed into social democrats who are a little more fond of wind power than succdems usually are. They are not based.
They had already announced their support for a succdem lord mayor even before the election.
They should’ve let them do that, and become the sole opposition party against a centre-left-right-coalition
While the Red-Greens remains the only half-decent pary in Danish electoral politics they still suffer from a heavy dose of liberalism. They would never do such a thing, just as they would never ever bring down a succdem national government.
They use the seats they get to achieve whatever piecemeal scraps you can within the confines of the system. This is not a brave or principled thing to do but it does provide material benefits that wouldn't have been achieved otherwise.
While the Red-Greens remains the only half-decent pary in Danish electoral politics they still suffer from a heavy dose of liberalism. They would never do such a thing, just as they would never ever bring down a succdem national government.
The party was founded as a fusion of the maoist Communist Workers Party, the Marxist-Leninist Communist party of Denmark, the trotskyts of the socialist workers party and a marxist split from Socialistisk Folkeparti. I've also read that they don't allow their members of parliament to serve more than two or three elections, because they don't want them to become professional politicians who're alienated from the working class. How did such a project become what you're describing right now?
That's what being recognised as "real" politicians by journalists and other politicians will do to a party. They have become part of the political system and although they have an ideal of being the party of popular movements they focus most of their time and energy on electoralism and parliamentarism.
They used to be more principled and were struggling just to get into parliament. Then they started being more open to be part of parliamentary compromises, they softened their rhetoric and shifted from focusing their campaigning on stuff like unemployment benefits to focusing on stuff like childcare that is also appealing to middle income voters.
It worked fine from them, in the sense that they are now getting a lot more votes. And that is good, they do get important material gains here and now from doing parliamentary politics, however it is becoming increasingly hard to see how they are working towards revolutionary changes.
It's not everybody who likes their more moderate approach. The Free Greens party that arose from the collapse of the Alternative party did so in part as a protest against the de facto totally loyal support that the Red-Greens gives the succdem government. The new party doesn't look to be able to survive the next general elections though.
Do they still call themselves marxists?
Thanks for your detailed response so far btw. If you ever want to know anything about Belgian politics, I'd gladly do the same.
They do. Their party programme is a pretty decent Marxist analysis and speaks about the necessity of revolution and the replacement of the police and military with be organisations based on popular power. They are also free from anti-communism.
However in day to day politics it is mostly about doing parliamentary politics to get social democracy with a human face.
