Today is DK Elections - election day in Denmark, one of the small, traditionally leftist states in Northern Europe.
Polls have shown the current centre-left government almost catching up with the right wing opposition during the three weeks election campaign.
The election campaign has been muddy, without a clear theme, centered on the character of the two main candidates for the premiership, both of them trying to embrace the other on the most contentious issues such as immigration or welfare reform.
It has also seen a new party emerge - The Alternative - a green grassroots democracy party now polling about 5 % of the vote and a possible kingmaker position.
First a little bit about the Danish electoral system:
The 179 seat unicameral "Folketing" is elected under a proportional system, where all parties polling over 2 % nationwide will get representation according to their vote share. Four seats are allocated Greenland and the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic though outside the 2% threshold (more about them later)
The proportional system and the low threshold has led to a parliament with a multitude of parties - 8 in the current parliament with a ninth poised to enter this time.
This usually leads to minority governments with more or less stable majorities backing them. According to Danish law a government doesn't have to win a vote of confidence - it just has to avoid loosing a vote of no confidence. The result has been a political culture where broad compromises are commonplace and where no government can count on getting their full program through.
Turnout is one of the highest in the world - last election 87,7 % of all eligible voters (there'a automatic voter registration). Here at 1:30 PM on election day turnout looks like it will match last time in spite of the widespread dismay with the current politicians.
Current situation:
The last election resulted in a narrow victory for the left side, and with the help of one of the North Atlantic representatives Social Democrat (roughly akin to British Labour) Helle Thorning-Schmidt (of selfie fame) could get the backing of the needed 90 members of parliament.
Her tenure has been rocky to say the least. The most centrist coalition partner had tied itself to a deal with the former government which had made severe cuts in unemployment support, and as that sort of deals are normally not broken the new government had to administer the cuts including a whole series of halfhearted patchups to cover the droves of unemployed loosing support. On top of this a prestige toll/anticongestion scheme fell apart on resisitance from local social democratic mayors, a bruising conflict with the teachers union and the sale of a stake in the country's biggest utility to tax evaders Goldman Sachs left many core supporters in dismay. The latter issue blew up the third and leftmost party in the government, which left the government (though still supporting it).
A year ago oppinion polls were dismal. The social democrats themselves were polling under 20 %, way under the 25 % from last election, which was already their poorest showing in a century - as late as the '80's they could poll 35%. The left bloc was close to 10 % behind.
But the leader of the opposition, former PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen (of general COP 15 embarrasment, if anyone remembers that) from the Liberals ran into problems of his own (note: Liberal in Europe means free market liberalists, not the general left wing stand like in the US, and are generally centre-right) . Througout his career he has run into a series of small time sleaze cases - first class flights for his whole family on the expense of an international development organization he was chairing, putting his smokes on the public expense account etc. etc. Nothing big but very much frowned upon in a generally very uncorrupt political culture. And then last year he ran into one too many - a Sarah Palin like case of him billing his party for suits, socks and underwear. He barely survived as party leader and after briefly loosing the lead in the polls they put him back in front. A commentator has coined this election as a choice between a politically characterless prime minister and a personally characterless opposition leader. On the day the election was called the right led by about 8 points.
The campaign:
But as voters got to have a closer look at the opposition leader they really didn't like what they saw, and especially the social democrats very cleverly used his credibility problem. Add an economy picking up steam and Helle Thorning-Schmidt running a much tighter ship for the last year or so and also earning a well respected international profile (important in a small country like Denmark). Within the first week of the campaign his lead was gone and the left slightly in the lead.
In panic the right steered the election campaign into the contentious immigration issue. That made the campaign as nasty as ever, but did stop the bleeding and put the right slightly in front again. Especially the Social Democrats more or less abandoned any pretence of a more humanist approach and glued themselves to the right wing shit campaign in order to keep the marginal voters.
Leading up to election day polls has moved a tiny bit left again: four out of five polls has the right a seat or two in front, the fifth has the government barely winning. All of them are statisticly dead heats.
The dominant picture though is a slide away from the two main parties and to the smaller parties on the fringes. On the right side especially the xenophobic Danish Peoples Party is in for another good election and might end up close to 20 %. Also the neoliberal Liberal Alliance is doing good. Lars Løkke Rasmussens own party is in for a drubbing, but he might still end up prime minister.
On the left the social democrats might have a slight gain on their poor showing from last time, but the two junior partners in government (of which one of them left half way) could be cut in half.
The question is however whether their losses will be picked up by the far left red-green Unity List and the new party The Alternative. The first - for decades a tiny party on the fringe of Danish politics - is poised for a record 8-10 %.
But the frustration of many voters has more than anything benefitted the upstart Alternative. Running on a program of green restructuring of the economy, creative solutions, grassroots initiatives but with no socialist/liberal ideological baggage and instead appealing to creative, internationalist and collective minded types. Just watch their election video here. It's in Danish but I bet you haven't seen a party presentation like that before.
So in short: The right wing has promised a freeze on public expenditures and tax breaks, but disagree on for whom. A further tightening of the already nasty immigration policies are in the wake and so are big cuts on foreign aid.
The left side has promised modest expansions in public services, disagree deeply on immigrant policies and probably being dependent on the Alternative might push green policies further.
But both blocks are fraught with rifts and disagreements and whoever wins will have to govern on at least four parties. For all the traditional compromising in the political culture a grand coalition is very unlikely, as is any of the smaller parties jumping ship to the opposite block. On top of this oppinion polls show a record 20 % of voters being in doubt on the eve of election day.
Very likely the whole thing could end up in the Faroe Islands or Greenland, and that could be even more unclear as two of the normally left leaning members from there has said that they are for sale for anyone who will grant them greater autonomy and better conditions. It remains to be seen if any of the larger parties will trade the fundamental construction of the state for a single government period.