A nationalist pro-remigration party has emerged as the biggest winner in Denmark’s snap parliamentary election.
The right-wing anti-immigration Danish People’s Party (DPP) more than tripled their 2022 vote share from 2.6% to 9.1%, and won 16 seats in the 179-seat Folketing – the largest gain for any party in the March 24 election.
The DPP added 11 seats, more than double the number gained by the Green Left party, which won 11.6% of the vote, up from 8.3% six years ago. The Conservatives and the Social Liberals added three seats each.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats won the most votes, but lost 12 seats in the party’s worst result in 120 years, sparking her resignation on Wednesday morning.
Centre-right party Venstre also suffered its worst election in a century, and ended up only marginally ahead of the DPP on 10.14% of the vote and 18 seats.
The DPP, led by veteran anti-multiculturalism campaigner Morten Messerschmidt, ran on a remigration platform that included demands for net negative Muslim immigration, de-Islamisation, large-scale deportations of non-integrated immigrants, a review of all citizenships granted in the past 20 years, and cheap fuel.
Mr Messerschmidt described the huge gains enjoyed by the party as a clear signal of public discontent.
“The fact that the Danish People’s Party has now tripled its support clearly shows that Danes are fed up,” he said following exit polls, and a week before the election announced that he wanted more Muslims leaving Denmark than entering.
Negotiations will take place for the formation of a coalition government in the coming weeks as the Social Democrats are 52 seats off a majority, with the Moderates led by Lars Lokke Rasmussen expected to play a major role.
Danish Ministry of Finance figures show that immigrants from MENAPT countries (Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey) and their descendants impose a net annual cost on the state of around 85,000 kroner per person.
In 2018 that group alone accounted for 24 billion kroner of the total 31 billion kroner net cost of non-Western immigration, according to the same official figures.
The fiscal analyses have sharpened public sentiment that high welfare benefits combined with lower employment rates among some migrant cohorts strain the system that Danes fund through some of Europe’s highest taxes, resulting in even the Social Democrats taking a tough line on immigration.
Header image: Morten Messerschmidt on election night (Facebook).
