Danish PM's left-wing bloc wins election, but no majority

COPENHAGEN

Denmark's Social Democrats, led by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, finished first in March 24’s general election, but posted their weakest showing in more than 120 years and the left-wing bloc failed to secure a majority.

With all votes counted in metropolitan Denmark, the left bloc was credited with 84 seats in the 179-seat parliament and the right with 77, while 90 are needed for a majority.

The centrist Moderate party, headed by Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, became kingmaker with 14 seats, and thorny negotiations are expected in the coming weeks to build a coalition government.

Frederiksen, who has been in office since 2019, told cheering supporters that she was "ready to take on the responsibility of serving as Denmark's prime minister again for the next four years."

She noted however that "there is little to suggest that forming a government will be easy."

Moments earlier, Lokke said he wanted to see a cross-bloc coalition, even though all three parties in Frederiksen's unprecedented left-right government in power since 2022 lost ground in the election.

"We must not be divided. We must not be red [left-wing]. We must not be blue [right-wing]. We have to work together," he said.

Coalition partner Troels Lund Poulsen of the Liberal Party ruled out forming a new government with the Social Democrats.

"Either we have a center-right government, or we go in opposition," he told supporters.

Traditionally Denmark's biggest party, the Social Democrats were credited with just 21.8 percent of votes, their lowest score since 1903 and down from 27.5 percent in 2022.

The anti-immigration Danish People's Party, which has heavily influenced policy since the late 1990s but slumped in the 2022 election, more than tripled its result to 9.1 percent of votes.