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1st LD: Denmark kicks off parliamentary elections

Xinhua, June 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

Danes went to the polls Thursday to decide which candidates and political parties can enter the parliament.

At 9:00 a.m. local time (0700 GMT), a total of 1389 polling stations opened in city halls, schools and sports centers throughout the country as more than 4 million registered voters went to cast their ballots.

The voters will elect 179 members of the unicameral parliament, or the Folketing in Danish.

A total of 799 candidates have been registered for this year's election. Of them, 250 are women, 1.9 percent down from the 267 in the 2011 election, according to official statistics.

The average age of the registered candidates is 47 years old for men and 45.2 for women, both slightly up from the 45.9 and 43.9 respectively in the 2011 election.

This year's election will see a tight race between incumbent Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and former Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen.

Thorning-Schmidt, who has headed the ruling center-left red bloc after winning the 2011 election, is under huge pressure to retain power, as the center-right blue bloc led by Rasmussen is still taking a narrow lead in the latest polls.

Topics like economy, welfare and immigration have been dominating the election campaigns since Thorning-Schmidt called the early election on May 27.

Danish citizens who are permanent residents in Denmark, Greenland or the Faroe Islands and at least 18 years old are entitled to vote.

A high turnout is expected for Thursday's vote. In the 2011 parliamentary election, 87.74 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots.

The polling stations will close at 8:00 p.m. (1800 GMT), and preliminary results are expected to come out at midnight Thursday. The official results of the election will be released Friday. Endi