Jacob Christensen

There you go: Today turns out to be Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s second anniversary as Danish prime minister. Two years can be a long time in politics, or it can be a fairly short time. One obvious problem is that the effects of policy decisions often only really show after a longer period of time.

I think it is fair to say that Løkke entered office being underestimated which was a bit curious given that he was the operative behind the Fogh government’s health care and public administration reforms. Obviously this was somebody who on a practical level would be able to get things done.

On the other hand, Løkke was not one of Fogh’s close confidantes and, given his position in government, this made it hard to see what exactly where he stood. He also faced the task of establishing his authority in the Liberal Party in general and the Liberal parliamentary group in particular. The latter appears to have been a rough ride.

The most spectacular failure of the Løkke premiership was the COP15 summit which descended into a complete mess. Lack of experience was one explanation, internal conflicts between the Prime Minister’s Office and the Climate and Energy Ministry another. As it is, this was something Løkke inherited from Anders Fogh, but he lacked the strategy to deal with the issues.

On the domestic arena, the May 2010 crisis agreement and the proposal to abolish the Early Retirement Benefit show some of Løkke’s political weaknesses: He acts by stealth and surprise rather than carefully preparing the (relevant sections of the) public for his reform ideas. This may to some degree work on the parliamentary level but it also creates problems when it comes to maintaining support for the Liberal Party.

I’ll admit that it is a bit daring to comment a debate which I haven’t watched yet, but still: Here are a number of factors worth remembering when you read comments about Sunday’s debate (billed as a “duel”) between Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Helle Thorning-Schmidt or the coming electoral campaign.

1. The Liberals and the Social Democrats look set to win 45-50 percent of the vote combined. While it will be extremely surprising to see anybody else than Lars Løkke Rasmussen or Helle Thorning-Schmidt emerging as prime minister after the election, it is not much of a presidential election.

But I’m pretty certain Danish media will present it as such.

2. We should never, ever, confuse a battle with a war. It is perfectly to win a battle – or even a series of battles – and still lose the war. Similarly, the left side may perform poorly in a debate, a series of debates or even the entire campaign and still win the election.

Because…

3. Polls show that the left side has the advantage: Compared with 2001, 2005 and to some degree 2007 the voters’ agenda has changed and the view of the left and the right has also changed.

a. Unemployment and welfare are up, immigration is down. This gives the left an advantage.
b. Voters rate the left more favourably than the government on unemployment, welfare, health care and education. This gives the left an even bigger advantage.

4. Even if S and SF attract voters from the right, it is still worth noting that the Social Democrats have problems improving their (bad) 2007 performance.

5. That the voters tend to trust the left more on the main issues doesn’t imply that the S-SF economic policy platform is adequate given the economic challenges faced by Denmark.

Personally, I would expect the coming decade in large parts to be a replay of the late 1980s with a long period with very slow growth.

Wordle here. Text source downloaded from the Liberal Party’s homepage.

Off-the-cuff reaction: Very daring of Løkke to put the early retirement benefit into play when the Danish People’s Party immediately rejects any cuts to the programme. But obviously it will be an issue in the coming electoral campaign.

Oh, well: One of my readers tricked me into making a prediction.

We still have no indication about when the next election to the Folketing will be called. The ball is on the prime minister’s part of the pitch and he can call an election with three week’s notice. The best guesses would probably be some time in January (provided Lars Løkke Rasmussen makes a splash in his new year’s speech), April (this has to do with the coming round of collective bargaining in the public sector) or September (before the opening of the 2011-2012 parliamentary year), but short-term movements in the public opinion will no doubt be followed extremely closely by Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Lene Espersen.

The electoral agenda seems to have moved from immigration to “classic” themes like the economy and public services. I have also seen figures which imply that the government has lost the advantage that the bourgeois bloc has enjoyed with regard to health services since the late 1990s.

Still, the likely outcome is a much more complicated Folketing than the ones we have known since 2001 where the government has been able to govern with the support of DF. If the government manages to survive, it will depend on DF and LA whose political agendas are very different. Similarly, an S-SF government (in itself a novum in Danish politics) will rely on either DF or the Red-Greens and the Social Liberals to pass its policies.

As it is, the next Danish prime minister (Lars Løkke Rasmussen or Helle Thorning-Schmidt) will need the flexibility of a Poul Schlüter to survive. The next Folketing will be interesting.

As the saying goes in Danish: When the cat is out, the mice are dancing, and during the last week, the mice have definitively done some dancing while prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen spent a week on vacation with his family. The culmination came on Sunday when unnamed sources in the Liberal Party criticised Løkke for his lack of leadership.

It is easy to see why the Liberals are restless: The PM has faced difficulties (to say the least) in promoting his “Project 2020″, there are problems with getting the Conservatives to play in tune and countless stupid little stories have conquered the political agenda (I mean: How the €%#” did lunches in kindergardens become a national political issue dominating the agenda for two weeks?). Add a lacklustre performance by the PM at COP15 and his mysterious failure to appear at the ambassadors’ meeting and things look – well, messy.

So now the Liberals are down at the level from 1998 in opinion polls and, horror of horrors, his Social Democratic challenger after five years finally enjoys the same level of confidence as the PM. Not good.

And we may ask: What went wrong and what can be done about it?

One thing which is noteworthy is that the Liberals do not appear to be a party in internal conflict over policy – this is not like the British Conservatives in the 1990s who fought endless battles over the legacies of Thatcherism and Europe, eventually tearing the party apart. There are, all things considered, no liberal zealots waiting in the wings. But as I have noted before, I see Løkke as a more ideologically motivated politician than Anders Fogh so the lack of ideological profile is a bit surprising.

If we look for major issues, then the relationship between the Liberals and the Conservatives merits attention – with the interesting twist that the Conservatives despite all attempts to raise their profile are stubbornly stuck at 10 per cent of the vote. Unlike the 1970s or the 1990s, it is not like the Conservatives are locked in a deadly contest with the Liberals over voters. It could be that the Conservative weakness is part of Løkke’s problems: The Conservatives need attention and they can make a splash in media but they are too week to really have leverage on government strategies.

Løkke’s fumbling is often contrasted with Fogh’s steely resolve, but we should remember that Anders Fogh did have his moments of clumsiness: Remember the messy negotiations over tax cuts in 2007 and the less than convincing reshuffles the same year? Of course, Fogh’s fumbles were seen as exceptions to a slick performance, while Løkke is now generally expected to be a klutz with the occasional bright moment. Maybe an element of positive feedback in the perception of Løkke is playing a role here?

Changing the leader before the next election looks like a dangerous path. Leave aside that the party would have to admit making a mistake in the first place, then the issue would be finding a credible candidate for the party leadership. Søren Gade is bogged down in scandals surrounding the Ministry of Defense and looks even more unreliable as a leader than Løkke. Kristian Jensen is still very young and pulling in Carl Holst from regional politics would be a bit of an experiment.

Well, as the Swedes say: He who lives will see.

As I read it during the week-end, here are some short notes on Niels Krause-Kjær’s biography of Lars Løkke Rasmussen:

The book is mostly a journalistic biography using template 1A. It is easily read, but on the other hand the tendency to use casual spoken language in a written text occasionally annoys me. There aren’t any revelations in the stricter (media) sense, but it is a very useful summary of Løkke’s twenty-year career in Danish politics. A number of observations still stand out and – at least in my opinion – could merit some attention, also by PolSci types.

So: What did we learn and what might merit some further discussion?

1. For a Danish top-level politician, Løkke has stayed unusually close to his (geographical) roots which are the village of Græsted in Northern Zeeland. He never really went through the socialisation, moving to Copenhagen or Århus meant for Poul Nyrup Rasmussen or Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Somehow, Anker Jørgensen comes up as a parallel, and even he moved from Christianshavn to Sydhavnen.

2. As Krause-Kjær also points out, Løkke’s background in local and regional politics is highly unusual despite all talk of local politics being the entry to a political career. The high-flyers go directly for the national arena, one way or the other.

3. For a long time, Løkke looked like the heir presumptive in the Liberal Party to most people, but Krause-Kjær argues that Løkke through his youth and much of his early years had a tendency to live on the edge in career terms. Does this also apply to his approach to politics and policy decision-making?

4. Kause-Kjær also implies that Løkke will be happy basing his government on the Danish People’s Party. As long as we have a VKO majority, a continued polarisation between the left and the right blocs looks likely. How important is his socialisation in internal party politics and local politics in this aspect?

5. Løkke has a degree in law but has never practised as a lawyer. In fact, the biography makes no mention of how having an academic education has influenced Løkke’s way of working or thinking. When I read Anne Sofie Kragh’s biography of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, I noted that the same applied to him. Which begs the question: These days most top-level politicians have an academic degree, but does having a degree in higher education play a role in practice? Is it mostly a training in managing and presenting a large amount of information (in itself very useful), does it have some substantial impact or is it in fact irrelevant?

6. Kause also points out that Løkke’s personal network is based on party contacts. PolSci people have for a long noted that traditional party organisations were being replaced by smaller, more professional ones, but Løkke has made much of his career in the town halls in meetings with local party activists. Did we underestimate the role of party organisations (we are talking the 90s and the 00s here) or was this another indication of Løkke living dangerously?

Finally, Krause doesn’t compare Løkke with any of his predecessors (needless to say, Kraus notes how Løkke is different from his immediate predecessor Anders Fogh Rasmussen), but I would offer Erik Eriksen as the most likely parallel. Unlike Løkke, Eriksen never appeared as the obvious leader of the Liberal Party – until he seized the day. Similarly, Eriksen became prime minister by seizing the day. For an immediate observation, Løkke was biding his time, but as Krause notes at several occasions, Løkke also knew, and knows, how do identify his moment of opportunity.

And to quote (from memory) what Søren Mørch wrote about Erik Eriksen: He was a friendly man which often misled others to believe that he was their friend.

The advice “If you want a friend in politics, get a dog” still stands.

Niels Krause-Kjær: Lars Løkke – et portræt af Danmarks statsminister. Jyllands-Postens Forlag, 2009.

Update: Anne Sofie Kragh’s name corrected. Apologies.