Northern Exposure
Since its election in 2015, Denmark’s rightist government had been struggling to keep control of a chaotic coalition. The liberal party Venstre, led by Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, insisted on keeping the minority government afloat by making a long range of devastating concessions to the ultra-liberalists in Liberal Alliance and the nationalists in Dansk Folkeparti. Demands for extreme measures against immigration and tax cuts for the wealthiest Danes shook the foundations of the government and caused voters to ...
read more "Outgoing government: Infighting lead to the fall of the Danish right"
read more "Outgoing government: Infighting lead to the fall of the Danish right"
The Danish Left in a pro-European landscapeAmidst Brexit and the rise of populist, EU-skepticist parties all over the continent, the results of the European Parliament elections mark a historical decrease in Danish Euro-criticism leaving climate politics the only common area of political attention where Denmark follows the tendency of the result of the elections on the continent. Turning towards a work-from-within stance, the left has abandoned its decade-long leave position and ended the era of the popular resistance.Once again, Denmark marks a counter-tendency in European ...
read more "The End of an Era"
read more "The End of an Era"
The Danish Left at a European crossroadsFacing both national and European elections before the summer, the political situation in Denmark is opening up. An apparent decline of the far right is connected to the Social Democrats who have successfully taken over harsh immigration policies. The EU remains a marginal topic but as Brexit is unfolding, support for the union seems stronger than ever. In this environment, the dominant far left party runs its own European parliament campaign for the first time thereby opening up to new strategies as others seem ...
read more "From Euro-Criticism to Euro-Skepticism"
read more "From Euro-Criticism to Euro-Skepticism"
After the 14 April parliamentary elections the Finnish parliament is more left-wing, more gender equal and younger. Among 200 MPs 91 are now women. Left Alliance got its first victory in 24 years and Social Democrats in 20 years, while Green League got its best result in parliamentary elections. According to voter advice applications the new MPs of almost all parties are more left-wing than those in former parliament. This is especially remarkable in parliamentary groups of Green League and Swedish Peoples’ Party. However, the red-green parties (SDP, Green...
read more "Finnish Parliamentary Elections 2019"
read more "Finnish Parliamentary Elections 2019"
A long time coming
After a new Swedish record of 131 days with only a temporary government, Sweden now finally has a coalition in place. The election took place on the 9th of September last year and on the 21st of January the new ministers were sworn in. The end result is a government of the social democrats (SAP) and the Green party. They amassed the necessary support by entering into a so called “January agreement” with the Centre party and the Liberals. This contract stipulated 73 concrete policies on which the incoming government could reach agreement with the Centre ...
read more "United we fall"
read more "United we fall"
The day after the election, no one knows who will be governing Sweden in the coming four years. The two traditional coalitions are tied at almost exactly the same result. The current governing red/green coalition; the Social Democrats, the Greens and passive support from the Left Party, received 40.6% of the votes, while the challenging centre-right coalition; the Moderates, Liberals, Centre Party and Christian Democrats, ended up with 40.3%. The rest was made up of the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats at 17.6%, which makes them the third biggest party and,...
read more "The end of Swedish exceptionalism"
read more "The end of Swedish exceptionalism"