Denmark election: far right has slowed under Frederiksen – but at what cost?

Denmark election: far right has slowed under Frederiksen – but at what cost? Polling for anti-immigration DPP is relatively low, but many feel its ideas have been co-opted by Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats Mayasa Mandia, a recent graduate living in the small Danish town of Kokkedal, will be voting for the left in Tuesday’s general election – but it won’t be for Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats. The 23-year-old, a practising Muslim, says that under Frederiksen’s government far-right commentary has become normalised in the Danish mainstream. She has seen this, she says, at her own university, where there were discussions about banning prayers. “There are more important issues to talk about than the skin tone of someone or whether or not they wear a scarf on their head and whether that scarf is reflective of our Danish values or not,” said Mandia. But, under Frederiksen’s centrist coalition, anti-immigrant rhetoric and Islamophobia have become increasingly commonplace in Danish politics, she feels. On Tuesday, in an election expected to give Frederiksen a third term as prime minister, Mandia will be giving her vote to one of the leftwing parties hoping to form a “red bloc” coalition with the Social Democrats. Unusually in a continent where far-right forces are making unprecedented inroads, polling for the anti-immigration Danish People’s party is relatively low – the party is forecast to garner about 7.5% of the vote, with smaller parties of a similar bent predicted to pick up a further 9%. Many feel that is not because their ideas have been vanquished, but because they have been co-opted by Frederiksen’s centre-left. The prime minister’s hardline immigration policies – she came into government in 2019 saying she wanted to cut asylum seeker numbers to zero – have attracted global attention and inspired similar approaches across Europe , including in Sweden and, more recently, the UK. Domestically they have been stalling the growth of the far right, while at t...