Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen risks her continuity in power this Monday and Tuesday by ordering the sacrifice of 15 million copies in 2020 without legal coverage
The family of Nordic social democracies faces another possible abyss: the eventual change of power, now in Denmark, in elections accelerated by the so-called mink crisis of October 2020. The Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, then defended the sacrifice of more than 15 million copies, in light of a health warning derived from Covid-19, but without legal coverage.
Two years later, Denmark returns to the polls in early elections, prompted after several waves of criticism of that decision by its head of government, a Social Democrat with an atypical line in that political family. Frederiken did not resign after it became known that the massacre was carried out without legal support in a country that is the world leader in the fur industry. Yes, his Agriculture Secretary, Mogen Jensen, resigned a month after he gave the order, in November 2020.
The Kingdom of Denmark, with 5.4 million inhabitants, including those of two autonomous regions, vast Greenland and the Faroe Islands, will return to the polls in elections Monday and Tuesday. It will be seven weeks after Sweden’s turnaround, where despite retaining Social Democracy as the most voted force, a complicated power shift took place: former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was left behind by the conservative Ulf Kristersson, at the head of a coalition from the moderate center, but with the far-right Swedish Democrats (DS) as an external ally.
The Swedish case was an example of Nordic parliamentarism in its purest form. Andersson went into opposition, defending first place and getting even more votes; Kristersson became prime minister, despite the “humiliation” of seeing his traditional second place taken from him by DS radicals; and Jimmie Akesson, leader of the victorious radical right, resigned not to run for government in exchange for the ability to set the executive’s agenda from the outside.
In Denmark, no such spectacular turnaround is predicted, but there are at least four candidates with the potential to reach the head of government. Frederiksen himself, who came to power in 2019, four years after he succeeded Helle Thorning-Schmidt as head of the Social Democrats; He faces three leaders of the centre-right bloc: the liberal Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, the conservative Sooren Pape Poulsen and former Prime Minister Lars Lookke Rasmussen, whose options have grown in recent polls.
There are fourteen parties going to the polls and, as has been seen in Sweden, it does not have to be the first or even the second to lead the next government. Decisive for Frederiksen’s future is whether the right-wing bloc adds enough majority to return to power.
The mink business -or ‘minkgate’- is the stone in the shoe of that social democrat, somewhat arrogant and authoritarian, who succeeded in public life during the pandemic crisis with few restrictions. He chose the direct route, in light of a health warning pointing to a possible mutation in the virus that would have cast doubt on the vaccine’s effectiveness. But he ignored that the law allowed the slaughter of farm animals only with verified cases. Opposition pressure was followed by a parliamentary committee’s advice that the government’s actions were “reprehensible”. From there it went to snap elections.
Mette Frederiksen, 41, has led her re-election campaign with her image as a strong woman, in a small country, but able to reject or even laugh, in 2019, on behalf of then-President of the United States, Donald Trump, or “buy” Greenland. Contrary to what happened in Sweden, there was little attention in Denmark on the migration issue in the pre-election debate. After all, the Social Democracy, represented by the Danish Prime Minister, can be just as harsh and restrictive in this matter as the proposals from the right.
Under his administration, the possibility of establishing shelters in Rwanda, on the model considered in the United Kingdom under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has been discussed. Frederiksen’s party has launched a national advertising campaign with the slogan ‘Safe in times of uncertainty’. Not surprisingly, a recent survey found this to be one of the Danes’ biggest concerns.
Source: La Verdad
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