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Paradoxes and Opportunism: The Danish Election of March 19981

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Nicholas Aylott
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Extract

THE RESULT OF THE DANISH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION OF 11 MARCH 1998 could hardly have been closer. It came down to 89 voters in the Faroes: had this number voted for the local centre-right party, rather than the centre-left one, both of the islands' two seats in the Danish Folketing (parliament) would have gone to supporters of the opposition, thus tipping the parliamentary balance. However, because the sister party of the Danish Social Democrats won one of those seats, the incumbent prime minister, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, managed to confound the predictions of the opinion polls and stay in power, continuing his Social Democrats' coalition with the Social Liberal Party. It remained a minority government; but this is the norm in Denmark's fragmented multi-party system. Moreover, with the presumed support of the parties to the left of the Social Democrats, and with other parties also professing their keenness to cooperate, the chances of a stable government enduring through the rest of the four-year parliamentary term looked bright.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , January 1999 , pp. 59 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1999

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Footnotes

1

My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for his or her helpful comments on the first draft of this article.

References

2 See Damgaard, Erik, ‘Denmark: Experiments in Parliamentary Government’, in Damgaard, Erik (ed.), Parliamentary Change in the Nordic Countries, Oslo, Scandinavian University Press, 1992.Google Scholar

3 Svenska Dagbladet, 11 March 1998.

4 Aylott, Nicholas, ‘Between Europe and Unity: The Case of the Swedish Social Democrats’, West European Politics, 20:2 (07 1997)Google Scholar.

5 As Bille has remarked, the balance between the blocs is so fine that ‘Minor changes in the number of seats held by an individual party, or even the replacement of a few individuals from one wing by another in a party can lead to major changes regarding government formation, governability and majority building’. Bille, Lars, ‘Denmark: The Oscillating Party System’, West European Politics, 12:4 (10 1989), p. 56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Svenska Dagbladet, 9 March 1998.

7 For these and other election statistics, see Politiken, 12 and 13 March 1998.

8 Worre, Torben, ‘The Danish Euro‐Party System’, Scandinavian Political Studies 10:1, (05 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Cf. Gilliam, Michael and Oscarsson, Henrik, ‘Mapping the Nordic Party Space’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 19:1 (03 1996), p. 35.Google Scholar

10 Bille, Lars, ‘Leadership Change and Party Change: The Case of the Danish Social Democratic Party, 1960–95’, Party Politics, 3:3 (07 1997), pp. 384–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 There are echoes here of the situation in Sweden in 1973–76, when the socialist and non‐socialist blocs had the same number of parliamentary seats, requiring some decisions to be taken by lottery. There was also soon an added irony in a Faroese deputy in effect depriving Nyrup Rasmussen’s government of its majority. After the Faroes’ own election on 30 April, a government committed to seeking independence from Denmark took office in the islands.

12 Cf. Bille (1989), op. cit.

13 Politiken, 12 March 1998.