By NTB, Dag Høie and Stian Fyen

The Left is the largest nationwide with 21.2 percent of the vote.

But both the major mayoral parties must note an overall decline compared to the municipal election result four years ago. Then the Social Democrats got 32.4 percent of the vote, while the Liberals ended up at 23.1 percent.

The Social Democrats declined markedly in the four largest cities of Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg. In Copenhagen, it ended up that the Unity List, which is the sister party to Rødt and SV in Norway, has taken over as the largest party.

Crushing the Social Democrats

On it a measurement at altinget.dk just before the election, the Unity List was measured at 22.4, while Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats were measured at 20.6. But the result was to be much worse for the Social Democrats, who have been the largest party in the Danish capital since 1909. According to Danish TV2 they got just 17.3 percent of the vote. This is a decline of as much as 10.3 percentage points from the previous municipal elections.

The unit list went on its side with 6.2 percentage points and got a result of 24.6 percent. The radical socialists are thus by far the largest party in Copenhagen.

– It’s a little difficult to say why they are experiencing so much in Copenhagen right now. But a huge issue in Copenhagen is the building of Lynetteholmen, which is an artificial island in Copenhagen and a huge urban development project. It is the Unity List against. Another issue is the environment and climate, on which they have profiled themselves, Signe Bock Segaard told Dagsavisen before the Danish municipal elections.

She is a researcher at the Department of Social Research, but was born and raised in Denmark and follows Danish politics closely.

[ Radikale sosialister kan vippe det danske arbeiderpartiet av pinnen etter 100 år med makta i København ]

Moxnes: Can happen here too

– We see all over the west that the radical left is strengthening. This is probably due to a number of deeper societal trends. We have had 40 years of increased inequality, deregulation and market liberalism. It creates a backlash. What has been achieved is that in a number of countries, social democratic parties have been involved in this policy, for example in Norway and Denmark, Rødt’s party leader Bjørnar Moxnes told Dagsavisen before Danes went to the polls.

And if Norwegian voters get bored of the Labor Party, Moxnes believes many more can look at alternatives on the left here as well.

In Oslo, every third voter votes for Rødt, SV or MDG. Suddenly there are three of us where the Unity List is today, he says.

Despite a sharp decline, the Social Democrats are Copenhagen’s second largest party and they are allowed to keep the mayor (rapporteur). Sophie Hæstorp Andersen has been elected mayor with support from the Unity List.

The case continues during the video

The big winner

Overall, however, it is the Conservatives who end up as the local election’s big winner in Denmark after an increase from 8.8 percent in the 2017 election to 15.2 percent in Tuesday’s municipal election.

The Danish People’s Party was the biggest loser in the election. The party lost 132 of its representatives and now has 91 representatives left nationwide. The party received 4.1 percent of the vote, more than a halving from 2017, when the DF received 8.7 percent. Party leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl acknowledges that the election was catastrophic.

The opposite was the case for Nye Borgerlige. Party leader Pernille Vermund is very satisfied with a support of 3.6 percent. The party gained 0.9 percent in 2017, when the party ran in local elections for the first time.

The turnout in Tuesday’s election was 67.2 percent after votes from all of the country’s 98 municipalities had been counted. In the municipal elections in 2017, the turnout was 70.8 percent.

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