COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Denmark’s Social Democrats, led by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, finished first in Tuesday’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.
It remains to be seen which bloc will be able to build 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.
Lokke told cheering supporters he wanted to see a cross-bloc coalition similar to Frederiksen’s unprecedented left-right government in power since 2022.
“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.
However, his coalition partner, Liberal Party leader Troels Lund Poulsen, ruled out forming a government with the Social Democrats.
“Either we have a centre-right government, or we go in opposition,” he told supporters.
Frederiksen, seen as the favourite going into the elections, has been praised for her leadership after fending off US President Donald Trump’s repeated demands to annex Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory he claims the United States needs for national security reasons.
The prime minister, who has been in office since 2019, spent part of election day in Aalborg, her electoral stronghold in the country’s northwest, with Greenlanders living in Denmark.
