Danish Elections Called

[Winston]

Nice weather locally, slight frost, clear skies and sunny, should make for a high turnout today.

And two late polls from yesterday evening, one from Gallup/Berlingske with 3630 voters, one from Ramboell/Jyllands-Posten with 2581 show a firm majority behind the government block. Total numbers are 98 vs. 77 for Gallup and 95 vs. 80 for Ramboell.

Numbers by party for those interested:
(2001 Election - Gallup - Ramboell)
*-* = government block

Socialdemokraterne 52 - 44 - 44
Radikale Venstre 9 - 16 - 19
*Konservative Folkeparti* 16 - 19 - 18
Centrum-demokraterne 0 - 0 - 0
Socialistisk Folkeparti 12 - 12 - 12
*Kristendemokraterne* 4 - 4 - 4
Minoritetspartiet 0 - 0 - 0
*Dansk Folkeparti* 22 - 22 - 20
*Venstre* 56 - 53 - 53
Enhedslisten 4 - 5 - 5

[Winston]

Voting started at 9:00 CET and will conclude at 20:00 CET.

4,006,295 people are eligible to vote, and around 174,000 of those are first time voters.

A total of 947 candidates are standing, of which 299 are women.

The natonal election result, in terms of seats in Parliament by party, is expected at 23:15 CET tonight.

Personal votes results, and which specific candidates were elected, should be available late Wednesday evening.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Stefu
Well, it's always applied to Americans, hasn't it?

It's always applied to anyone who mattered, Canadians and Finns need not apply.

[Winston]

I just went and cast my vote for Inge Dahl-Sørensen, Venstre, like I always do.

She's group secretary for Venstre in Parliament, a strong advocate of individual rights and a firm hand in matters of criminal justice legislation.

A slightly lower turnout is reported compared to 2001 as of 10 o'clock, but it's too early in the day to actually be of much concern.

[Bosh]

According to those polls, the only big shift seems to be away from the SocDems and towards the RVentre. Why would that be?

[Winston]

I think there are actually other shifts among several parties, but they would not appear in the totals since they more or less even out. It's a very complicated pattern as I see it, but I won't go into that here. The bottom line is, on the surface it looks like status quo for most parties, except as you mention for Social Democrats and Radikale Venstre.

But I don't think the voters have been (will be) wandering directly between those two parties. For the most part, the voters gained by Radikale haven't come from Social Democrats. Not as I see it anyway.

I believe the Social Democrat party is in a deep crisis because of the previous historic defeat of 2001 and subsequent replacement of their leader Nyrup Rasmussen with current leader Mogens Lykketoft. Lykketoft has been in politics for 25 years and, while respected as a responsible Minister of Finance for 7 years, he's never been a popular figure, not even among his own party base. Also, they are at a crossroads where they will need to reconstruct their political platform and agenda, because they have come out of touch with large segments of their party base on issues such as responsible welfare reform and to some extent a firm position on immigration and integration of immigrants. The party leadership claim that they will be firm on immigration (contrary to what they were in the past), but it seems their voters don't believe it. The whole party seems unorganized and a bit of a mess right now, and there's already a lot of talk and positioning for the new leadership after Lykketoft, who is expected to resign shortly after the election defeat. A defeat which nobody really would doubt they will receive today.

Radikale Venstre on the other hand has seen a bit of a renaissance recently, nearly doubling their support according to most polls. Being Social Liberals, they've hit home with the voters on issues such as tax reliefs coupled with welfare reform proposals which few other parties have marketed very much in this campaign. Also, they stand to gain some support from traditionally leftish voters because of their relaxed policy on immigration issues. And their leader Marianne Jelved may be seen by some as a tempting dark horse choice for PM, aside from the two main contestants. Plus Radikale Venstre has a history of always promoting co-operation across the centre of Danish Politics, and although they're quite solidly in the camp of the opposition right now, it's not entirely out of the question for them to move closer to the government block on some issues, depending on how the new layout will be in Parliament, which may also appeal to a number of voters.

That's the short answer.

[Stefu]

Venstre!

[Winston]

Stefu

Glad to see you've concluded that Anders Fogh is, after all, the least ridiculous looking!

[Winston]

By the way, my daily paper and the country's largest, Jyllands-Posten has quite an unusual and innovative front page today, where they printed a variety of short letters to the editor on the topic of the election. The caption across the page translates roughly to "THE VOTERS DECIDE" or "VOTERS HAVE THEIR SAY". Nice touch, I don't recall them sweeping the front page like that, not since we won the Euro Ch'ship in football in 1992...

[Stefu]

Glad to see you've concluded that Anders Fogh is, after all, the least ridiculous looking!

No! I've concluded that he is, in fact, the most ridiculous-looking! I mean,



OH BABY

[Winston]

Well there you have it. Berlusconi said a couple of years ago that Anders Fogh was the best looking PM in Europe, and that he was always worried about what his wife might be up to when Fogh was around. I even made a thread on it.

I honestly think Lykketoft wouldn't present grounds for those kind of worries...

Anyway, not much to report right now. Except that the far left-wing party Enhedslisten apparently is pondering whether to demand a new election in one constituency on Zealand, because they were erroneously given the letter 'Y' instead of 'Ø' on the ballots there. Of course the party name was as it should be, as were those of their candidates, so not much chance of a ground-shattering revolution there I'm afraid.

[Stefu]

DIEBOLD VOTE SCAM THEFT!

[Last Conformist]

What's the logic in giving a party called Enhedslisten either Y or Ø as their party letter?

(My favourite party letter, incidentally, is those of the Swedish far-right party the Sweden Democrats - 'sd'. Same abbreviation as the SS's intelligence section.)

[Stefu]

Berlusconi said a couple of years ago that Anders Fogh was the best looking PM in Europe, and that he was always worried about what his wife might be up to when Fogh was around.

He's Silvio Berlusconi, he says wacky stuff.

Everyone knows that hottest PM in Europe is Göran Persson, anyhow. HOTTTT

[Winston]

LC, they aren't given a letter, they choose it themselves. One of the bygone parties that now make up Enhedslisten was Venstresocialisterne, who used to have the letter 'Y', which might go a ways in explaining the mixup in that one constituency. I imagine they picked 'Y' back when they started because it gives a simplified graphic representation of a slingshot, which I'm led to believe is a much favoured weapon among revolutionaries and militant protestors.

The present day Enhedslisten is such a recent addition to the political landscape that there weren't that many letters left to choose from. In fact, by doing a quick run-down of the letters already taken, I think only I, L, R, T, W, Æ, Ø and Å were available. Their logo resembles the authorized ecological farm product logo very closely, so that may have been the tie breaker. I mean who wouldn't agree with a party that favours ecologic farming enough to adapt such a symbol, eh?