ADVERTISEMENT

Center-Left Parties Pull Ahead as Denmark's Election Approaches

Center-Left Parties Pull Ahead as Denmark's Election Approaches

(Bloomberg) -- Denmark’s center-left parties would command a solid majority in parliament if elections were held today, according to a poll that showed growing support for the so-called red bloc opposition.

The Norstat poll published on Friday by Altinget estimated that the Social Democrats and their allies would obtain 98 seats in the parliament in Copenhagen. The center-right blue bloc, headed by the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, would obtain 77 seats.

Center-Left Parties Pull Ahead as Denmark's Election Approaches

Support for the Liberals has been falling steadily while it’s key ally, the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, has seen its numbers plunge to 14.4 percent from 21.1 percent it got in the 2015 election. The populist party has been at the center of a media storm recently after its former leader, parliament speaker Pia Kjaersgaard, ordered a lawmaker to take her 5-month old baby outside the chamber.

Friday’s poll suggests the Social Democrats are less dependent on their most extreme fringes, the socialist Red-Green Alliance and the environmentalist Alternative party.

Denmark needs to hold parliamentary elections by June 17.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Rigillo in Copenhagen at nrigillo@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jonas Bergman at jbergman@bloomberg.net, Christian Wienberg

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.