Danish Elections Called

[Winston]

Believe it or not, it's a coalition of candidates from several parties who decided to join efforts in getting representation in Parliament. They claim to be neither Socialist nor Liberal, and they come from such parties as the >80 year old Retsforbundet, "Justice Party" (Georgist party in favour of high tax on land ownership instead of income tax), and a small party never represented anywhere called "Humanist Party".

The Minority Party is very much in opposition to all other parties standing in this election, they want to de-empasize the importance of traditional jobs and want to change all social payouts and tax deductions into a fixed "citizen's pay" for everybody, kind of like the minimum pay, but also for people not working.

Other items on their agenda are opposition to the EU, and a desire to heighten the respect for minorities in society. They want to break the ties to the USA, oh, and they also want cannabis made legal.

[Last Conformist]

Georgist? Isn't that supposed to be =aggrarian? Why do they want high taxes on land?

[Ramo]

Who else is in the opposition, besides the Social Democrats? Radical Venstre and the two Socialist parties?

[Winston]

LC,

No the Georgists aren't particularly agrarian, not that I know of. It used to sometimes be a moderately sized party here, esp. in the 1940's and 50's. They participated in governments a couple of times, together with Soc. Dem. and Radikale Venstre. Last time they were represented in parliament was in the 1970's, but for some time after that, they played a role in the popular anti-EEC/EU movement. If you're interested, look up Henry George, who formed the principles of the Georgist platform.

Ramo,

That's about it apart from the small ones that likely won't get in, Minority Party and Center-Democrats. That's 6 parties with the opposition. The 4 others will support the current government, with the twist of the small Christian Democrats probably being somewhat conditional, provided they get in.

Put simply, you need 2.0% of the overall vote to get in Parliament, giving you 4 seats. (There are other, seldomly seen options than the 2.0%, but they won't happen this time around.)

So both Christian Democrats and Enhedslisten (Far-left) are in danger of not having anyone elected, but my feeling is they'll both just make it. Not so with Minority Party and Center-Democrats.

[Last Conformist]

I just looked up an article on Georgism, and it's clear I had completely misunderstood what it's all about.

I much like the implication that Norrland would pay over half of Sweden's taxes ...

[Winston]

Here's a nice picture of Mogens Lykketoft for a change.

Suggested caption:

"Party leader M. Lykketoft, Social Democrats, seen here at one of his more succesful campaign rallies earlier in the day, remains confident he will attract enough support to win the election on 8 February."

[Gangerolf]

What about the EU constitution etc, how does that affect the elections ?

[Winston]

Not much so far, and I don't think it will. We're having a referendum on the constitution sometime and the parties' position on the issue are all well known.

EU matters seldom directly play a part in general elections campaigns, we always have referendums on new treaties and handover of "sovereignty", and inbetween there's usually a broad consensus in Parliament on the different EU matters.

And it's pretty much only the fringe parties who are critical of further integration. As far as EU issues go, the rest of the nation is more along the lines of . Which has both an up- and a downside. The upside is we're apparently past the eternal, never-ending battles over whether we should be in the EU or not, and my, it's taken us 30 years to get to that point. But it's disappointing that our policies and goals for the European partnership generally aren't topics for open debate.

[Gangerolf]

Fear the DanoComs

[Last Conformist]

The thing I like about commies is their propensity for infighting. It's looking we might get a few new leftist parties for the next general election; since they're not gonna draw votes from anyone right of the Social Democrats, they're not gonna achieve anything but making sure more of the lefty vote goes to parties that fail the 4% barrier to the diet, so helping the Right.

[BlackCat]

Sadly enough the barrier isn't 4 but 2 % in Denmark

[Last Conformist]

Raise it then!

[Gangerolf]

I took this test http://pol.dk/valg2005/skema.asp and it seems I'm in 65% agreement with the Social Democrats, Christian Democrats 63%, CD 63%, Minority party 60%, Socialists 58%, Venstre 55%, DFP 55%, Conservatives 55%, etc

I had to answer "neutral" on a couple of questions though. I don't really know or care what kommunalreformen and whatnot is about.

[Last Conformist]

71% Det Radikale Venstre
70% CD
65% SF
65% Det Konservative Folkeparti
65% Socialdemokraterne
61% Venstre
61% Kristendemokraterne
55% Enhedslisten
53% Minoritetspartiet
46% Dansk Folkeparti

Um?

Aren't Radikale Venstre lefties? I said that taxes should go down, and thought I answered pretty centre-rightily/liberally in general ...

[Gangerolf]

They're not "socialists" if that's what you mean. They're social-liberals, so that would make them what, slightly left of centre? Radikale Venstre's sister party in Norway (called Venstre) is currently in coalition with the conservatives and christian dems...