Roundup: Denmark holds parliamentary elections

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

At 9:00 a.m. local time (0700 GMT), a total of 1,389 polling stations opened in city halls, schools and sports centers throughout the country as more than 4 million registered voters began to cast their ballots. The voters will elect 179 members of the unicameral parliament, or the Folketing in Danish.

TIGHT RACE

This year's election is 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.

During the three weeks election campaigns, Rasmussen has mostly seen a solid lead in opinion polls, but the left-wing coalition Thorning-Schmidt has caught up gradually, resulting in a dead run on the day before election.

Though opinion poll suggests a narrow victory to the right-wing coalition, the gap is so narrow that even the national polling institutes refuse to anticipate who will become the next prime minister.

"This race is so close that we actually don't have any ways to select a winner at this stage", said Thomas Yung Andersen, director and partner in the market research company Epinion on Wednesday.

The last four seats in the 179-seat parliament will be appointed by self-governing Greenland and the Faroe Islands, potentially making the North Atlantic mandates decisive for the formation of a new government in Denmark.

FUTURE OF WELFARE

The election campaign has been mainly focusing on the policies towards refugees and immigrants in Denmark, the public spending and the preservation of the welfare system. Topics like foreign affairs and environmental issues have played a less important role than anticipated.

Kasper Hansen, a political science professor at the University of Copenhagen, said two issues, namely the welfare and immigration, are going to be decisive in the election.

"Welfare is always on top of the campaign agenda," he told a press briefing ahead of the election. "If it's going to be welfare, the red bloc will have an advantage. But if it's going to be immigration, the opposition will win," he said.

The right-wing coalition wants to stop expansion of the public sector, lowering the public spending in order to decrease taxes and rewarding hard work. They believe that low salary jobs are not very attractive for unemployed Danes with unemployment benefits, which can be very high compared with the low salary.

The left-wing coalition, however, wants to balance the conservation of welfare benefits with a business friendly environment and maintains that the "Scandinavian model" with free social services and a high level of labor market flexibility will keep Denmark competitive in the future.

Dennis Schnell-Lauritzen, a Social Democratic candidate for Parliament said this election will be decisive for the future of what he calls the "the Scandinavian miracle".

"There are really no contradiction between maintaining a strong economy and a strong social welfare system combined with a flexible labor market. On the contrary, I firmly believe that the welfare system is making Denmark more competitive in a globalized world, not less", he said.

Other prominent topics, especially in the last week of the election campaign, were the policies towards immigrants and refugees.

During the election the parties have competed to propose the strictest policies against foreigners, blaming each other for the increasing amount of refugees arriving to Europe from especially Syria. The tone used in the debates on foreigners prompted domestic and international criticism, while the Danish Business Association (DI) called on politicians to "speak nicely about foreigners" because Denmark for the years to come will depend on specialized foreign labor resources.

DIVIDED VOTER OPINION

At a polling station in Copenhagen's Noerrebro district, Hans Jeppesen, a 65-year-old teacher who is also a pensioner, said he voted for the ruling Social Democratic Party as he did in almost every elections since the 1960s.

"I believe that the welfare is important for both our happiness and the competitiveness of Denmark. A country with safe, happy and healthy citizens is more capable of being innovative and internationally competitive," Hans told Xinhua.

However, not all voters are in favor of the incumbent government. Henning Oestergaard, 58, said he voted for Rasmussen-led Liberals instead of the Social Democratic Party as he did four years ago.

"I believe that Rasmussen is the right man to get this country back on track," said Oestergaard, who is an engineer. "I believe a right-wing government will be better at keeping its words and to keep a fair but strict policy towards foreigners in our country ."

Thorning-Schmidt ousted a right-wing coalition led by Rasmussen four years ago and became the first female prime minister in Denmark. But she saw her support plummet as the incumbent government implemented austerity measures and controversial structural reforms.

However, her approach in the early stages of the campaign with tough talk on immigration and Denmark's improving economic outlook have helped the ruling coalition gain rising support in recent weeks.

According to the latest opinion poll made by Epinion for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, the center-right coalition is expected to get 88 seats in the Parliament, against 87 seats to the center-left coalition.

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 for men and 45.2 for women, both slightly up from the 45.9 and 43.9 respectively in the 2011 election.

Of the 799 candidates, 332 are standing for re-election while 467 are new. The numbers for the 2011 election was 347 and 457 respectively, according to the ministry.

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 of over 80 percent is expected for Thursday's vote. In the 2011 parliamentary election, 87.74 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots.

"Voting is important to me. I want to exercise my right and duty to choose who to take care of my interests in Parliament," said 43-year-old ecologist Anders Bo Petersen at the Islands Brygge polling station.

"When I cast my vote it gives me a feeling of being a part of something bigger, a feeling of belonging to the community that we call our country," the retired teacher Hans said.

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. Endit