[ad_1]
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has held general elections on Tuesday, November 1, seven months ahead of her term.
Ms Frederiksen, who has led the Social Democrats’ minority government since June 2019, has seen her popularity decline in recent weeks following her decision to wipe out Denmark’s entire captive mink population during the pandemic.
Opinion polls show that the center-left bloc is neck-and-neck with the center-right opposition, including parties that want to reduce immigration.
In June, a committee appointed by the Danish parliament harshly criticized Ms Frederiksen’s government’s decision to cull millions of healthy minks at the height of the coronavirus pandemic to protect humans from the virus’ mutation.
Elections will elect members of the 179-seat parliament or assembly.
Announcing the poll, Ms Frederickson said: “We want a broad government with parties on both sides of the political centre.”
“Of course, having an election in an international crisis is special,” she conceded.
Ms Frederickson has recently been speaking publicly about going to power with some parties belonging to the centre-right opposition.
At 41, she became Denmark’s youngest prime minister when she took office in 2019.
She reached out to other parties, including the Opposition, to help steer the Scandinavian country through the Covid-19 pandemic, and later worked with the opposition to boost Denmark’s defense spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022.
She is also a staunch supporter of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
After the report on the mink culling was published, the Social Liberal Party, one of the government’s centre-left allies, came out against Ms Frederickson and criticised her handling of the mink issue.
Ms Frederiksen insisted she did not know the culling decision was illegal, saying it was “based on a very serious risk assessment”. A law was passed shortly after, making it legal.
[ad_2]
Source link