Jacob Christensen

It is probably more a symbolic than a substantial demonstration but in today’s opening debate New Alliance decided to support the opposition and not the government in a vote about a general policy statement.

Noted and filed.

In the Danish political gossip, much of the attention has focussed on the future of Lars Løkke Rasmussen who has been deputy chairman of the Liberal Party since 1998 and Interior and Health Minister since 2001. In the latter role, he prepared and organised the wholesale reform of Danish local government which was implemented at the start of this year and if there is anything like a manhood test in Danish politics, preparing and implementing a reform like that is it.

But what to do next? Mr. Løkke Rasmussen has no obvious rivals in the Liberal Party and at the same time he has always been loyal to Anders Fogh Rasmussen as party leader and prime minister. This means that he – provided he doesn’t suffer a serious political or physical accident – is the heir presumptive, perhaps even the heir apparent, as leader of the Liberals and as prime minister. Again, if we look at the political chattering, expectations are that Mr. Fogh Rasmussen will resign and hand over his offices to Mr. Løkke Rasmussen in a couple of years’ time.

As it is, the gossip was right this time: Lars Løkke Rasmussen has taken over the Finance portfolio which was vacated when Thor Petersen, a veteran of the Schlüter and Fogh Rasmussen governments, was presented as the new speaker of the Danish parliament.

But where do prime ministers come from politically? The argument has been that the Finance portfolio is a heavyweight portfolio and that no portfolio of a similar weight would be available to Mr. Løkke Rasmussen. On the other hand, Finance is a demanding and notoriously tricky portfolio. A finance minister, per definition, is locked in conflict with the other government ministers.

If we look at the Danish prime ministers since the de facto adoption of parliamentary government in 1901, we find a variety of political careers but some finance ministers have made it to the top. If we list prime ministers after their last portfolio before becoming prime minister, the list is as follows:

• No prior government office: J.H. Deuntzer, L. Holstein-Ledreborg, C.Th. Zahle, Otto Liebe, M.P. Friis, Anker Jørgensen, Poul Schlüter, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen
• Foreign Affairs: Erik Scavenius, H.C. Hansen, Jens Otto Krag, Poul Hartling
• Finance: Niels Neergaard, Vilhelm Buhl, Viggo Kampmann
• Interior: Klaus Berntsen, Knud Kristensen
• Social Affairs and Employment: Th. Stauning, Hans Hedtoft
• Agriculture: Th. Madsen-Mygdal, Erik Eriksen
• Ecclesiastics: J.C. Christensen
• Trade: Hilmar Baunsgaard
• Taxes: Anders Fogh Rasmussen

As it is, H.C. Hansen actually served two terms as finance minister: In the 1945 liberation government and in Hans Hedtoft’s first government between 1947 and 1950. On the other hand, the finance ministers who made it to the top could best be described as political accidents. Neergaard had to take over after J.C. Christensen had been forced to resign following the Alberti scandal while Buhl stepped in after Th. Stauning’s death in 1942 as Stauning’s chosen successor Hans Hedtoft had been blocked from leading offices by the German occupation authorities.

Finally, Viggo Kampmann emerged as the only real candidate after H.C. Hansen’s death in 1960 but he lacked a proper base in the labour movement and for both political and personal reasons his time in office was an unhappy one.

If we look at the issue in the opposite perspective, then Finance has yielded a number of prominent casualties. Thorkil Kristensen (1945-1947 and 1950-1953) was a brilliant technocrat who believed he was a politician but lost the internal battle with Erik Eriksen during the 1950s.

In the 1960s, Finance earned a reputation of killing politicians one after the other: Social Democrats Hans R. Rasmussen and Poul Hansen were trusted hands who both died in or shortly after leaving office and the Conservatives’ Poul Møller succumbed to both political and physical pressures and had to resign in 1971 with a ruined health. Henry Grünbaum survived the challenge – if only because he was sidelined by Jens Otto Krag and Anker Jørgensen.

Things got a little better in the 1970s, partly because the portfolio was divided into one dealing with budgeting (Finance) and another dealing with taxes, but Knud Heinesen and Svend Jakobsen were both worn out by the pressures of the position and left active politics. Henning Christophersen left Danish politics in 1984 to become a European commissioner after realising that he would never make it to the prime minister’s office while Henning Dyremose was sidelined by Hans Engell in a ferocious power struggle in the Conservative People’s Party.

Finally, Mogens Lykketoft tried and failed in the 2005 election after being the central actor in Poul Nyrup Rasmussen’s governments during the 1990s. Lykketoft’s position was alleged to be so strong that political commentators occasionally joked that Nyrup Rasmussen was just the prime minister in Mogens Lykketoft’s government. It still didn’t bring Mr. Lykketoft any luck.

To sum up: Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s transfer from Interior and Health to Finance was expected but given the challenges ahead, he may find that being a Finance Minister can be a mixed blessing politically even if he is the prime minister’s chosen successor and does not have any serious political rivals in the Liberal Party.

Out: Thor Petersen (Finance), Rikke Hvilshøj (Integration)

In: Birthe Rønn Hornbech (Integration), Troels Lund Poulsen (Environment)

Change: Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Interior and Health -> Finance), Karen Jespersen (Social Affairs -> “Welfare” (SA + Interior)), Connie Hedegaard (Environment -> Energy and Climate), Carina Christensen (Families and Consumer Affairs -> Transport), Jacob Axel Nielsen (Transport -> Public Health)

Ecclesiastics change hands from Bertel Haarder (who receives Nordic Cooperation from Connie Hedegaard as his additional charge) to Birthe Rønn Hornbech.

Source: Prime Minister’s Office.

Media commentators have touted a generational change among the Liberals. I’m not sure that the appointment of Karen Jespersen in September and now Birthe Rønn Hornbech points in that direction. This is more like adding safe pairs of hands.

I’ll have to admit that I missed this point in the new government programme completely but the Danish National Church (which is a state church) is also the object of a number of political and administrative reforms.

Trying to describe the formal status of the church is a bit difficult, to say the least. The 1849 constitution included the promise of a separate framework for the church which, as you may have guessed, has never been fulfilled. This means that the church on the one hand is placed directly under the control of parliament and the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs. (Completely OT, but during my first year at university I was in the same class as the present permanent secretary of the MEA) Unlike the Church of England or the Church of Sweden, the DNC does not have anything like a Synod or a National Church Assembly. Similarly, the DNC does not have an archbishop but a number of ordinary bishops.

Before you get the impression that Denmark is some kind of Lutheran equivalent of Iran or Saudi-Arabia, you need to know that most of the day-to-day administrative business is run by local parish councils while the clergy preaches the gospel, baptizes the new-born, marries people and so on. (Actually, immigrants are usually spooked by the fact that they have to register births with the local church office, believing that the child is automatically entered as a member of the church) The MEA does its best to stay out of the way unless something really nasty (ie. a conflict between a parish council and the local vicar) happens.

Ideologically, the DNC is also split into a number of more or less formalised factions and movements like the Grundtvigians, the Inner Mission, Tidehverv and so on, which means that the Danish National Church as such does not have an opinion on a lot of religious matters.

Anyway, the new government programme (see page 60) promises us “more church for the money” which means spending less money on churches and churchyards – yes, the text actually says so – and more on what is called “service for church members”. In more practical terms, this means changing government grants from being specifically tied to positions to being determined by factors such as the size of respective congregations, church attendance etc.

Another interesting change has to do with the bishops’ conditions of appointment. As it is, bishops are elected by parish councilors and then appointed by the minister when a vacancy occurs – usually when the incumbent bishop reaches the age of 70 and is forced to resign due to age. Now, the government wants to change this so that bishops instead of being civil servants appointed for life will be appointed on a contract basis for a fixed number of years.

I’m still left with the question: How do you adequately measure and evaluate the efficiency of a church? Wouldn’t you need some kind of link to the guy upstairs to get information about the number of souls saved?

The government presented its programme, entitled “The Society of Opportunities” (sigh … a) when were politics reduced to marketing and b) could you imagine a programme entitled “The Society of No Opportunities”?).

Some very fast key points:

• Public sector quality reform
• Labour market, easier access for qualified workers
• Tax reform with substantial tax cuts for work income
• Promotion of sustainable development
• Infrastructure investments in railways and road traffic
• Referendums on Maastricht opt-outs (no dates given)
• Increase foreign aid to 0.8 % of GDP

I’ll have to admit that this is a bit of a sideshow but there is trouble brewing in the Danish Christian Democratic party which for the second time failed to gain representation in parliament.

Local councillors from the party’s traditional stronghold in Western Jutland are calling for the resignation of the chairman, Bodil Kornbek, and the return to a more right-wing orientation of the party which only managed to win 0,9 per cent of the vote on 13 November.

It may be worth noting that Kornbek is the only likely candidate for the chop among party leaders after the election. Despite their losses and some internal criticism of the party’s campaign strategy, it is extremely unlikely the Social Liberals will be replacing Margrethe Vestager in the near future.

Commentators have mulled the future of Bendt Bendtsen but as I see it there are no signs of a struggle – likely to involve Justice Minister Lene Espersen and Environment Minister Connie Hedegaard – for the Conservative party leadership.

After the election, commentators were quick to point out that the Social Democrats’ share of the vote in the 2007 election (25,5%) was the lowest since the 1906 election when the party (then known as the Social Democracy) – then in its ascendancy – managed to win 25,4% of the vote. The previous low point had been the 1973 earthquake election when the Social Democrats only managed to win 25,6%.

Historical comparisons are notoriously tricky and as Denmark used a single-member first-past-the-post system until 1918, the 1906 election is a bad starting point. In particular, we should note that the Social Democrats and the Social Liberals during the FPTP era cooperated in many constituencies by not presenting competing candidates.

Another problem is that in 1906 the Social Democrats were the only left-wing party in the party system. There were some splinter groups on the extreme left before the Bolshevik Revolution but after the split in 1919 and the formation of the Communist Party, which entered the Folketing in 1932, there has always been more than one left-wing party represented in the Danish parliament with the Socialist Party – formed in 1959 by the former Communist leader Aksel Larsen – as the most important.

As the electorate has become more volatile and the Social Democrats – especially during the 1990s – have lost their traditional electoral basis, it does not make much sense to concentrate on one party if we want to know how the balance of power looks in a long-term perspective. Instead we should look at the entire left-wing to see how bad or how well this part of the political spectrum did on 13 November even if Social Democrats of an earlier era would rather be seen dead than rely on the Communist or Socialist vote.

If we pool the votes of the Social Democrats, the Socialists and the Unity List/Red-Green Alliance as well as earlier, not defunct, socialist parties, the answer to the question “How well did the left-wing do in 2007?” is: Better than in the 2001 and 2005 elections but the left is still in a historically weak position. Even with the Socialist gains, the left-wing is down at the same strength as it was during the 1920s.

It doesn’t get much better if we include the Social Liberal Party – which more often than not has supported Social Democratic governments since 1924 – in the equation. The combined left in 2007 still lies 5-10% below the share of the vote it could count on for most of the period between 1929 and 1998.

What Helle Thorning-Schmidt needs to beat Anders Fogh Rasmussen (or a likely successor) in the next election is a formula that will move a net 5-10 % of the electorate from the Liberals and the Danish People’s Party to the Social Democrats.

Here is the chart with added information on the share of the vote won by parties to the left of the Social Democrats (violet), the Social Democrats (red), the Social Democrats and parties to the left (yellow/orange) and finally the Social Democrats, parties to the left and the Social Liberals.

The Danish election actually made it to the local newspaper.

Some short observations from today:

• David Troels Garby has done some nice work to see just how big the shares of personal votes drawn by leading candidates were. If we leave aside Bornholm as an outlier (pun intended), Helle Thorning-Schmidt actually beat Anders Fogh Rasmussen with 12,3% of all votes in the Copenhagen constituency against Fogh Rasmussen’s 11,1% of all votes in the Sjælland constituency. Of cause we have to take size and heterogeneity of the districts into account.
• Electoral researchers have been looking at the numbers from the exit-polls and confirmed my suspicions: Most of the mobility was within the red and blue blocs, respectively. It is a little surprising that Ny Alliance actually managed to pull some votes from the Social Democrats. The Liberals lost votes to the Danish People’s Party, the Social Democrats and Ny Alliance.
• The Folketing must elect a new speaker after Christian Mejdahl decided not to run in this election. This opens the prospect of (another) government reshuffle. But the speaker does not have to be an ex-minister.
• But Anders Fogh Rasmussen has declared that he will not be rushed into presenting the government’s programme (and possible new ministers). It will all have to wait until 23 November. (I hope potential Belgian readers aren’t too shocked by this piece of information)
• Update @ 21:30: Integration Minister Rikke Hvilshøj announces her resignation.

Oh, and Mogens Camre from the Danish People’s Party screws up completely. But that was only what was to be expected.

For Scandinavian-readers

Here are some reactions from bloggers I’ve followed:

Jarl Cordua (Liberal-ish) – Valget blev Pia Kjærsgaards triumf
Kristian Madsen (Social Democrat-ish) – Foghs farlige flertal
David Troels Garby hasn’t made any comments as such. Yet.

From the media:

Peter Mogensen (Politiken, ex-advisor to Poul Nyrup Rasmussen) – Fogh suveræn, Thorning sendt i tænkeboks
Niels Krause-Kjær (Berlingske Tidende, ex-Conservative spin-doctor) – Fogh i lyseblåt
Ralf Pittelkow (Jyllands-Posten, ex-Left Socialists, ex-Socialist, ex-Social Democrat, ex-advisor to Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, married to Karen Jespersen) – Foghs strategi efter sejren