Danish ‘Red bloc’ poised for power as voters react to economic deficit

If exit polls are correct, Helle Thorning-Schmidt – former British Labour leader Neil Kinnock’s daughter-in-law – would be the next prime minister, the first woman to hold the post in Denmark. The centre-right “Blue bloc” has been in power for ten years.

A win for the Left would also stem the influence of the current government’s anti-immigration ally, the Danish People’s Party.

For the past decade, the government has relied on the backing of the Danish People’s Party, enacting reforms to make Denmark more business-friendly and less welcoming to asylum-seekers from developing countries.

One poll, by TV2, projected Ms Thorning-Schmidt’s grouping would win a clear majority of 93 seats in the 179-seat parliament. Her Social Democratic party would be the largest in parliament with 44 seats.

The state of the economy has been the overriding issue of the campaign, with the governing coalition parties, like others in Europe, under fire for presiding over the worst downturn since the Second World War.

Ms Thorning-Schmidt, 44, has attacked Mr Rasmussen for failing to spur growth and for taking the country deep into deficit.

“We can say farewell to ten years of bourgeois rule that has stalled and get a new government and a new majority in Denmark,” she told reporters.

Her platform includes increased government spending, along with an unusual plan to make everyone work 12 minutes more per day. An extra hour of productivity each week, her group argues, would help kick-start economic growth.

Denmark has been spared much of the trauma suffered by other European countries because it remains outside the eurozone.

This means it is not involved in bailing out debt-laden countries such as Greece, an issue that has stirred popular anger in neighbouring Germany.

But the economic crisis has turned Denmark’s healthy surpluses into deficits, forecast to climb to 4.6 per cent of GDP next year.

Danish banks have also been struggling, with small bank Fjordbank Mors falling into the hands of administrators in June, the ninth Danish bank to be taken over by the state since the start of the crisis in 2008.

Some 300 people lined up yesterday in northern Copenhagen to vote.

“I will give my vote to the Socialist People’s Party, because we need the red bloc to overtake the government bloc,” said Jeppe Ilstedt, a 43-year-old unemployed teacher.

Businessman Bjarke Soerensen, 41, said he preferred Mr Lokke Rasmussen as prime minister because “Helle Thorning-Schmidt is not credible.”

Ms Thorning-Schmidt is part of an extended European political family, married to the son of Neil and Glenys Kinnock. Mr Kinnock was a European commissioner and Mrs Kinnock a European parliamentary deputy and Europe minister in the last Labour government. That the economy emerged as the top election theme was much to the chagrin of the Danish People’s Party, which had pushed through immigration laws that are among Europe’s toughest.

Ms Thorning-Schmidt has already promised to overhaul a system of beefed-up customs controls at borders with Germany and Sweden, which critics say violates the spirit of EU agreements on the free movement of people and goods.