Danish Anti-Immigrant Party Mulls Role in New Government

Tehran: Denmark's anti-immigration Danish People's Party (DPP) today mulled whether to join the Nordic country's next government after posting a record election score, making it the second-largest party in parliament.

Lars Lokke Rasmussen of the centre-right Venstre party is expected to head a new coalition government to replace outgoing Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, after winning Thursday's election.

But he will face tough negotiations with the DPP after its support jumped to 21.1 per cent from 12.3 in the previous election.

The result made the DPP Denmark's second largest party -- even bigger than Venstre - but whether it would actually join a coalition was unclear.

A string of minor but highly publicised spending scandals eroded support for Rasmussen, whose party - until now Denmark's main opposition party - dropped to 19.5 per cent, losing more than a quarter of votes from the last election.

"Venstre did not get the election we dreamed of, but we got the opportunity to head a government that can harness the economic upswing and let it gain traction in all of Denmark," he wrote on Facebook.

"That opportunity will be explored in the coming days. Difficult negotiations await."

Thorning-Schmidt tendered her resignation to Queen Margrethe at midday today without speaking to journalists as she left the Amalienborg Palace.

While her Social Democratic Party won the most votes, the centre-left bloc did not retain enough seats to stay in power.

Rasmussen was expected to visit the queen later today to formally be tasked with forming the new government.

Coalition talks would most likely begin on Saturday, a well-informed source said.

Seeking influence

Throughout the campaign the DPP had shrugged the idea of going into government.

From 2001 to 2011 it backed right-wing governments in return for support on its key policy demand: tighter migration rules.

Some analysts believe that the party could lose its anti-establishment appeal if it enters a coalition.

Morten Messerschmidt, a DPP member of the European parliament, said the choice came down to either "committing to a policy for the next four years and then be allowed to sit (there) and administer it," or being in a position where a Rasmussen-led government would have to "ask us every time they want to do something."

"The latter immediately sounds more appealing," he told public broadcaster DR.

Getting the DPP into the fold is in Rasmussen's best interest, said Roger Buch, head of research at the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus.

Otherwise he faces "having to go to 'big brother DPP' in front of rolling cameras every time something needs to be negotiated," he told the national Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

More moderate

One expert warned that any coalition involving the DPP might end up facing serious challenges over ideological differences, even though the party has recently toned down some of its more fiery rhetoric on immigration.

"If they can do it in the long run, that's where the challenge lies," Johannes Andersen, a political scientist at Aalborg University, told the Jyllands-Posten.

Kristian Thulesen Dahl, the DPP's leader since 2012, is credited with broadening its appeal and is seen as less divisive than his outspoken predecessor, Pia Kjaersgaard.

While Venstre wants to freeze public spending, the DPP wants to raise it, and it wants corporate taxes at a level higher than not only its right-wing allies but also the Social Democrats.

That, along with disagreements over Europe, means it sits uneasily with the other three business-friendly parties that make up Denmark's right-wing bloc.

A spokesman for the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats said he was surprised the DPP wasn't more keen to join a coalition government.

Party secretary Richard Jomshof told Swedish Radio that if the same scenario were to play out in Sweden his party would want to join the government to play an influential role.