Translated material
Denmark turned right
Terrorist attacks and refugees helped
For the first time since 1929, conservative parties won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections in Denmark last Tuesday. The main winner was Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the leader of the Liberal Party (Venstre), which took the largest number of parliamentary seats. He will replace his namesake, Social Democrat Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, as prime minister.Upon learning of the results, the losing prime minister sadly joked: “The people are just tired of looking at our faces.” He's partly right. For almost the entire last decade, the Social Democrats, supported by other leftist forces, remained in power. In the previous elections, they barely stayed in power, then Poul Nyrup Rasmussen won with a minimal advantage over his rival Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, who then headed the Venstre party. Perhaps the catalyst for the current defeat was the crushing defeat in neighboring Norway in September of the Workers' Party, the political twin of the Danish Social Democrats. Now Rasmussen will obviously have to resign as head of the party, and a revision of the ideological platform is also possible. The times of triumph of collectivism and solidarity appear to have come to an end in Scandinavia.
Voters showed almost record activity - 89.3% (there was more only in 1943 - 89.5%), and, according to experts, the Danes were brought to the polls by the most burning issue of our time - the attitude towards foreigners, especially refugees and immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. This problem became especially acute after the events of September 11 in America and was actively used in the election campaign by both liberals and even more right-wing parties. According to local observers, it was xenophobia, heralded by the leader of the far-right Danish People's Party (DPP), Pia Hjarsgaard, that rallied voters.
All calls by socialists to show tolerance towards the country's new citizens turned out to be in vain. The majority of Danes have demonstrated a negative attitude towards "non-locals", whom public opinion blames for the rise in crime and dependency - many foreigners do not work and receive social assistance. No wonder the DPP came in third place (17 seats instead of 13). As DPP leader Pia Hjarsgaard told the Vremya Novostei newspaper, her party will definitely seek tougher measures against foreigners. “We are obliged to do this because we owe it to the voters. After all, they showed us great confidence.”