voters called to the polls for legislative elections with a highly uncertain outcome

Will Denmark swing to the right? The Danes and the Danes go to the polls on Tuesday November 1st for legislative suspense. According to the latest polls, the maintenance of the outgoing Social Democratic Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, against a bloc bringing together the right and the far right, could depend on a centrist outsider. In this Nordic country of 5.9 million inhabitants, the campaign continues until the polls close at 8 p.m.

The poll was prompted by the “mink crisis”. A party supporting the minority government had threatened to bring it down if it did not call an election to ensure voters’ confidence after the decision, later declared illegal, to slaughter the country’s huge herd of mink to fight against Covid-19. Climate issues, as well as those of the cost of living – inflation is at its highest for 40 years – and the healthcare system, dominated the campaign. The issue of immigration, while most parties defend a firm line on the subject, was also widely discussed.

The latest poll, published by the Voxmeter institute, credits the “red bloc” (left) led by the current Prime Minister with 49.1% against 42.4% for the “blues”, an informal alliance of liberals and conservatives with three populist parties. According to this opinion poll, no bloc can govern without the Moderates, a centrist party created this year by former liberal leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen, twice Prime Minister in the past, who would win 8.5% of the vote.