Under pressure from the left-liberal coalition partner, Prime Minister Frederiksen announces new elections. Citizens are expected to vote on a new parliament in early November. The head of government is again confronted with a decision from the early phase of the corona pandemic.
Denmark will elect a new parliament this fall. After weeks of speculation, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced in front of her official residence in Marienborg north of Copenhagen that the next election will take place on November 1st. In doing so, she ultimately bowed to a demand from the left-liberal Radikale Venstre party, which is related to the mink scandal in the Corona crisis. In Denmark, elections have to be held every four years – in this case, Frederiksen would actually have until June 4, 2023.
The Radical Venstre, which supports Frederiksen’s minority government consisting only of Social Democrats, had given the prime minister an ultimatum in the summer: the prime minister should have called the election by the time parliament opened after the summer break on Tuesday. Otherwise, the party wanted to force a vote of no confidence.
The background to the ultimatum is Frederiksen’s role in the Danish mink scandal, in which millions of mink were killed during the corona pandemic. Only later did it turn out that the legal basis for this was missing. In a report, an independent commission had sharply criticized the prime minister and parts of her government, which had made the decision to mass culling mink bred for fur production due to corona concerns.
