Jacob Christensen

I’ll be posting instant comments about developments on the night on my Jaiku stream.

If for no other reason, then to see how it works

I’ll admit that Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen is a woman and that she is young. But she is in fact the Unity List’s top candidate in Copenhagen and representative at the final debate and not one of TV2′s hostesses – which Bendt Bendtsen only discovered too late.

Election Day, originally uploaded by malouette.

Berlingske Tidende/Gallup’s and Politiken/Synovate Vilstrup’s predictions on the day. They differ slightly.

• Fokus – Fega, snåla Sverige
  (tags: sweden art architecture)

Noted by an internet contact: When it comes to party leaders, women outnumber men in Denmark!

• Unity List – collective leadership but mainly represented by Line Barfoed and Johanne Schmidt Nielsen
• Socialists – Villy Søvndal
• Social Democrats – Helle Thorning Schmidt
• Social Liberals – Margrethe Vestager
• Christian Democrats – Bodil Kornbæk
• New Alliance – Naser Khader (re: party leadership – a little complicated here)
• Liberals – Anders Fogh Rasmussen
• Conservatives – Bendt Bendtsen (not unlikely that he will be succeeded by a woman)
• Danish People’s Party – Pia Kjærsgaard

That makes five parties led or represented by women against four represented by men. In terms of electoral support, it’s more or less fifty/fifty.

You will of cause have noted the left-right tendency.

The Danish news bureau Ritzau pulls the big one and asks: Are you ready to party like it’s 1998? (Meaning: A really, really, really close race between the blocs)

Also: Matthew Shugart has a post explaining the Danish electoral system.

Gallup and Berlingske Tidende rushed to publish their last opinion poll before the election. Before commenting this, I would note that opinion polls actually vary quite a bit – and you will also note some big jumps from 12 to 13 November here – so some polls have the Unity List safely in parliament while Gallup has the list well below 2% of the vote. Other polls also show that NA still hold the balance after the election while Gallup for all practical purposes condemns the new party to parliamentary irrelevance.

But here goes. First the groups of parties, I usually work with: The “Far Left” (Unity List + Socialists), the “Left” (Social Democrats), the “Centre” (Social Liberals, Christian Democrats and New Alliance), the “Right (Liberals and Conservatives) and the “Far Right” (Danish People’s Party):

The main tendency is that the Centre peaked early in the campaign but has been in serious decline ever since. It is a little hard to see on the figure, but the Right has been the main winner. Short interpretation: The government has managed to pull back the protest vote going to New Alliance.

Then the individual parties:

(Don’t ask me why the dates disappeared. You should never argue with a spreadsheet)

This is a little intriguing. Note that the Conservatives seem to claw back a lot of lost support but then collapses in the last observation. Liberals and Danish People’s Party look like last-minute winners.

New Alliance had a good first week in the campaign but then started a dramatic slide. The Social Liberals also peaked in the first week before starting their slide. The decline of the Social Liberals is a little less dramatic, but if Gallup is anything to go by, the party might want to evaluate its performance during the campaign.

The Socialist Party reached its peak during the last week of the campaign and may be on a slight decline in support. The Unity List is hovering around the 2% limit during the campaign – but I’ll make a reservation here: As noted in an earlier post, the immigrant vote may be a joker in the election.

And finally, in case you want to laugh at me, be stunned by my prescience or whatever. On 30 October, I made this prediction in a mail to a friend:

• Socialists – strong gains, partly taken from the Social Democrats, partly in the form of voters returning after voting for the Social Liberals in 2005
• New Alliance – enters parliament with somewhere around 10 seats and holds the balance
• Danish People’ Party – roughly the same result as in 2005
• Social Liberal Party – loses and get around 10 seats (see under Socialists)
• Liberal Party – loses some seats, voters go to NA and SocDem
• Social Democrats – lose some seats due to SP’s win
• Conservative Party – minor losses
• Unity List – enters parliament
• Overall result: LP-CP-DPP-NA majority. Anders Fogh Rasmussen continues as Prime Minister