Countdown to the Danish Election

The Danes are voting in an important election next Tuesday, and Henrik Ræder Clausen recently sent us an email from Denmark with a report on the final stages of the election campaign.

The big questions are:

1.		Will Dansk Folkeparti — the Danish People’s Party, which takes a prominent anti-immigration stance — make significant gains?
2.		Will the Ny Alliance, a new party recently formed by Nasser Khader and his allies, have an effect on the new ruling coalition that will form after the elections?

My uninformed guess is that every time Danish Muslims do something questionable — such as threatening Pia Kjærsgaard, the leader of Dansk Folkeparti — the support for the Danish People’s Party can only grow.

Here’s what Henrik Ræder Clausen has to say:

We had a political meeting tonight. Now there are five days left until we go to the polls, and everything is on a knife’s edge.

The meeting was going onto regional television, with Morten Messerschmidt of Dansk Folkeparti as well as a nice selection of right, centrist and left wing parties, five politicians total. The general theme was “Immigration and Integration”, with space for other topics on demand. The audience of 150 had space for the largest parties to have banners, balloons and choirs of fanatic fans — for fun and feeling. :)

The first half was a debate among the five participants, and was transmitted live. Our side (conservatives, widely spoken) had clearly the most applause, and feedback from the viewers confirmed that we did well.

The second half was questions and answers, where we had to submit questions in advance. It will be transmitted tomorrow — unfortunately outside prime time.

I had submitted the question: “What will you do to stop the Islamists?”, directed at the new centrist party Ny Alliance. Note that I say ‘Islamists’, not ‘terrorists’. I mean Political Islam, not just violent Islam, implicitly including the Muslim Brotherhood Islamists. And left no space for doubt — this is something we simply have to do.

They picked my question to be asked. And after some shuffling even made it the very first one! I made sure my tie was somewhat straight…

- - - - - - - - -

The reply from the Ny Alliance representative Anders Samuelsen was quite good. First, they’re creating an office to watch “radicalization”. I hope they’ll particularly focus on radicalization based on religion. Second, they intend to teach democracy. This is neat, bordering on profound. If done correctly, like into every corner of the school system, the press, any organization getting any form of public support, this can have a deep effect to empower the immigrants in a non-religious way and simultaneously preempt a power grab by the imams, whose claim to power usually is “frustrated Muslims”.

Messerschmidt took the opportunity to flash a newspaper front page he had been carrying, showing how irresponsible immigration policies had made Denmark a refuge for the worst of terrorists, and to repeat the warning against left-wing slacker attitudes on immigration.

The Social Democrat gave a reply I don’t recall. The left-wing socialist wanted to involve the imams in the work. Not only is this bad in itself, as it lends legitimacy of power to people based on their religion. It’s also remarkable that this was suggested by a left-wing party, who should shy away from religion like the plague. Weird times we’re living in…

Other subjects, like tax reform, were also discussed. Won’t bore you with this :)

After the meeting I thanked Samuelsen for his profound answer, and handed him a copy of “What the West Needs to Know” for further study.

Going to meetings makes sense :)

For readers who can understand Danish, Steen has posted a new interview with Pia Kjærsgaard.