Denmark’s Social Democrats lose 100-year hold on Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN – Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats party reeled on Nov 19 from a stinging blow after local elections saw them lose their more than 100-year hold on the capital and almost halve the municipalities under their control.

“We lost Copenhagen,” the Social Democrats’ mayoral candidate in the city, Ms Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil, told reporters.

“I think that is incredibly unfortunate. But we have to get back up in the saddle,” she said.

The Social Democrats won just 12.7 per cent of votes in Copenhagen, down three percentage points from the previous local elections in 2021 and far behind the Red-Green Alliance’s 22.1 per cent and the Socialist People’s Party’s 17.9 per cent.

The head of the Socialist People’s Party, Ms Sisse Marie Welling, will take over the position of mayor following negotiations with six other parties.

The Social Democrats have controlled Copenhagen for more than a century, and held the position of mayor since it was created in 1938.

The Social Democrats are expected to now control just 26 of Denmark’s 98 municipalities, down from the current 44.

Prime Minister Frederiksen, the party leader, acknowledged her “responsibility” for the election fiasco.

“We were expecting to lose some ground, but it seems that the decline is bigger than we expected, and that is obviously not good,” she said.

This is the second time since the 2022 legislative elections that her party has lost ground in an election.

In the 2024 European elections, the Social Democrats came in second behind the Socialist People’s Party. AFP