Here’s an analysis from one of our Danish contacts, who was an observer at the polls earlier today:
The result is quite muddy. Social Democrats didn’t win, but will get the premiership anyway. Socialistisk Folkeparti (tougher left) lost heavily, hard left Enhedslisten won out big.
The centrist, pro-immigration Radikale Venstre also won big, as well as the new Libertarian party, Liberal Alliance.
Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s party) lost three seats. That’s not a disaster, but it’s their first loss ever.
It’s not as bad as I had reason to fear:
1. The lefty majority is slim. 2. It includes Radikale Venstre, who are fiscal conservatives. 3. Bridging that with Enhedslisten is next to impossible.
My prediction: The new government can easily fall.
Danmarks Radio (state radio) notably didn’t bring up immigration in the final debate, and skipped asking anything EU-related as well. DR should be privatized, now.
Observations:
- Compared to the polls a week or two ago, the final result is a large improvement. The polls back then would have given a fairly stable leftwing government.
- Now they will have the chance to try out Keynes on steroids
- Dansk Folkeparti richly deserves some internal crisis.
- The Social Democrats will be responsible for the financial situation now.
- It’s worrisome that the hard left won so much.
Here’s a report from the Danish MSM, via the English-language Copenhagen Post:
Social Dems ‘Did It’
Social Democrat leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt put an end to a decade in opposition for her party tonight, when her centre-left coalition mustered enough votes to win a slim five-vote majority in parliament.
The electoral win puts a woman in the prime minister’s office for the first time in Danish history while at the same time ousting the Liberal-Conservative government, and its backers in the right-wing Danish People’s Party.
Addressing a crowd late Thursday evening Thorning-Schmidt proclaimed “we did it”.
“Today is change-day in Denmark. The Social Democrats are ready to work,” Thorning-Schmidt told a crowd of party faithful gathered at Copenhagen’s Vega concert hall.
The centre-left had campaigned on a platform of reinvigorating the social welfare state, and in her acceptance speech Thorning-Schmidt pledged to work for a society that “included everyone, and where everyone got a second chance — and another second chance”.
Continuing a theme that has laced this general election, Thorning-Schmidt also pledged to seek broad-based compromise and called on “everyone”, politicians and ordinary voters alike, to take part in that effort.
The new Social Democrat-led government and its allies are projected to have won control of 92 seats in the 179-member parliament. The Liberal-led alliance of now-former PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen is forecast to end with 87 seats.
Election night proved bittersweet for Rasmussen. Despite the centre-right bloc being forced into opposition, his Liberal party surpassed the Social Democrats to become parliament’s largest party with 47 seats, one more seat than the party earned in 2007.
The strong result had Rasmussen cautioning Thorning-Schmidt not to get too comfortable in her position.
“Take care of the keys to the Prime Minister’s Office, they are only yours to borrow,” Rasmussen said during his concession speech.
While it was Thorning-Schmit that claimed victory as the country’s new leader, it was two of her allied parties, the centrist Social Liberals and the far-left Red-Green Alliance that were the election night’s biggest winners.
Both parties more than doubled their representation in parliament and will wield significant influence over a minority Social Democrats-Socialist People’s Party government.
Also adding seats was the Liberal Alliance, a centre-right party supporting lower taxes and a smaller state.
Both the Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party lost seats in the election, as did the Danish People’s Party — the first time the party has suffered an electoral setback since entering parliament in 1998.
Part of the responsibility for the centre-right’s defeat is also due to be pinned on the Conservatives, who lost more than half of their representation and is now parliament’s smallest party.
11 comments:
"Thorning-Schmidt pledged to work for a society that “included everyone, and where everyone got a second chance — and another second chance”."
Perfect. More unemployed benefit junkies in Denmark then. All the while China, India and the Arab countries are working hard to catch up - and making cheaper versions of everything that Denmark makes...
I have to wonder what the motivating force of the electorate was.
Masochism?
I have to wonder what the motivating force of the electorate was.
My take is that there is a wide perception of the previous government underperforming - the economy is still slugghish etc. - and a desire to try something radically different. That would mean switching from the currenty strongly Keynes-inspired fiscal policy to Keynes on Stereoids.
That would, of course, lead to all Danes getting a very direct experience of Where Keynes Went Wrong, and an urgent need for Danes to understand how things really work.
Has anybody read this? I found it googling for information about history of the crusades as taught by Arabs. Other interesting subjects with regards to Muslim textbooks would be the Iberian Peninsula and Anatolia-Constantinople.
The Crusades in Arab School Textbooks
Author: Determann, Matthias
Source: Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Volume 19, Number 2, April 2008 , pp. 199-214(16)
Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
Keynesian economics, has a great attraction, and don't forget that the opportunity to put the first women PM into office played a big part among female voters.
Overall however the tension between economic progress for most people and paying out tons of money to Muslim immigrants and citizens, is a tough one. Likely to bring down the current new government.
Testing, my comments seem to be going into a black hole.
There was an 87% turnout of voters, so Danes definitely own the results. Most disappointing to find out that they are so foolish on economics, immigration and the Muslim threat, as well as the welfare load their immigration and social policy keeps adding. The Danes were perhaps over-praised by conservatives at this site and others for what turns out to be only an excellent and as it turns out unappreciated Prime Minister, Rasmussen. He's the one who stood up to enormous pressure by the world Muslim community rioting, vandalizing Danish embassies etc. demanding that the publishing newspaper and cartoonists be punished for the Mohammed cartoons. Rasmussen stood up for free speech and separation of mosque demands and his state. And this is the thanks he gets, similar to John Howard being turfed in Australia for standing up against Muslim colonialism in his country. Are the Danes so badly informed about the fraught world and European economic situation that they think ANY political party could have improved tiny Denmark's fortunes? They have done the one thing bound to make it worse for themselves. Are Danes truly so bovine and brainwashed that they think a heavier dose of Socialism especially with unlimited immigration of Muslim shirkers directly onto their Welfare rolls is going to improve things? Danish voters had alternatives, and they went further left. Terrible. It seems as though Europe cannot be saved because it refuses to lift a finger to save itself.
Laine, first things first:
1)The Rasmussen you refer to is Anders Fogh Rasmusssen, the successor of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (1993-2001). Anders was in office from 2001 to 2009, when he became the Sec. Gen. of NATO. The present Rasmussen is Lars Loekke, who wasn't elected, but took over from Anders on behalf of his party, The Liberals (Venstre). Lars was sacked yesterday, so although Mr. Rasmussen has been in office since 1993, it's actually three different Rasmussens.
2) An entire people doesn't shift from a conservative mindset to a socialist one overnight. The present election was won by the socialist/left-liberal coalition by the narrowest imaginable margin: 12,000 votes. If 6,000 voters had cast their ballots differently, the outcome would have been no change of government.
3) Maybe "Danes are so bovine and brainwashed" as you imply, but then we're not alone in the corral: I vaguely remember another people - one a bit larger than the Danish one - who voted one Hussein Oh'Bama into office not so long ago...
4) Every cloud has a silver lining. The present socialist/left-lib government under Mrs. Helle Thorning will be completely paralyzed. It's a minority coalition and depends on a fringe party of crack-heads, fossilized communist and - especially - a young, beautiful babe on one side and some really insane do-gooders, tree-huggers and 'know-it-all's on the other. To quote the American Messiah: "mark my words, yes, we can change it".
My bet: Denmark will get another election coming up before you can say "hop 'n charge".
@kepiblanc-
About that man we elected in 2009 (it seems a century now)...Andrea Shea King
sent me a wonderful quote yesterday via Glenn Beck but originally from The Czech Republic Observer(which I presume is a newspaper):
The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the Presidency.
It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama Presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their President.
The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America.
Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their President...
--------------
Amen.
This particular set of circumstances was one that worried Alexis de Tocqueville while he visited here for several years gathering material for his magnum opus, Democracy in America.
[That linked version is bound extremely well and printed on good paper(I bought it back when we were rich -- i.e., when the Baron was employed), obviously it is meant to last. Unfortunately I can't hold heavy books anymore bec. of FM so I gave it to our son. However, Kindle had a version for a dollar! So I am now reading that plus the first biography of Geo Washingtong after his death. Written by our then-Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Marshall -- de Tocq. uses Marshall as a primary source, which gives both books a kind of immediacy when read in tandem.]
Those who have a chokehold on the current government welfare bureacuracy's golden goose will not easily surrender the layer of golden eggs.
It is the union leadership and their enablers, the consensus media which we will have to push back. That's why public & privaate sector unions work in tandem w/ the MSM to demonize the Tea Party; they make no secret of their plans.
The thugs are scared because the Tea Party has proved they can take back the country despite the criminal power of the unions to get their way and the blanket of silence the MSM uses to shroud all the union behavior AND its losses.
For a specific lesson on how we will take the country back, see my post on Wisconsin's miracle victory-- make that a series of victories, since the union leadership and the MSM pulled every trick in the book to turn things in their direction:
The MSM Behind the Curtain
Despite George Soros' funding of all those super-cell PACs, the Tea Party -- those unemployed bitter clingers -- will bring us back to our proper center as a republic. It will take several generations, though, and we will go through some hard times before things are changed for the better. Not changed back, but changed to a reality which better fits our new circumstances.
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