Know about Denmark’s election that follows standoff with US over Greenland

Copenhagen: Voters in Denmark will decide who runs the Scandinavian country for the next four years in a general election next week, a vote that follows a standoff with US President Donald Trump over the future of the kingdom’s semiautonomous territory of Greenland.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the election last month, apparently hoping that her straight-talking image in the Greenland crisis would win her points with the electorate.

If the leader of the centre-left Social Democratic party can put together a new government after Tuesday’s vote, she will embark on her third term.

The 48-year-old prime minister has led the European Union and NATO member country since mid-2019. She is known for strong support of Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion and for a restrictive approach to migration.

In her second term, her support waned as the cost of living rose. But she enjoyed a bump in popularity as the government navigated the crisis over Trump’s designs on Greenland, which culminated in January in a short-lived threat to impose tariffs on European nations that opposed his call for U.S. control of the vast Arctic island.

University of Copenhagen election researcher Kasper Møller Hansen says that, while Frederiksen may cling to power, it’s possible this election will result in the worst results yet for her party.

It could potentially finish short of the 27.5 per cent of the vote it won in 2022.

“She’s getting a big burst to her poll results on the topic of Greenland, or the relationship with the United States, or Ukraine,” said Møller Hansen. “On home turf, she’s being really challenged.”

Denmark’s system of proportional representation typically produces coalition governments, traditionally made up of several parties from either left or right. The outgoing administration was the first in decades to straddle the political divide.