News analysis: Denmark's center-right coalition to form new gov't with challenges ahead

The Danish Liberal Party leader Lars Loekke Rasmussen was on Friday tasked with forming a new government after the centre-right opposition coalition beat the incumbent center-left government in the 2015 parliamentary election on Thursday.

A so-called "queen round" was launched on Friday afternoon, where leaders of all parties winning seats in parliament visited Queen Margrethe II and gave their party's recommendations for the next prime minister.

Rasmussen was then given a mandate to form a majority government, according to Danish public broadcaster DR.

He will summon all the parliamentary parties for negotiations on Saturday at Christiansborg, the seat of the Danish parliament, to explore the possibility of forming a new government.

Denmark's center-right blue bloc garnered 90 seats in Thursday's election, ensuring a majority in the 179-member Danish parliament. And the lead of negotiations to form a new government makes it certain that 51-year-old Rasmussen will get Denmark's top governmental job.

Incumbent Prime MinisterThorning-Schmidt, who stepped down as chairwoman of the Social Democratic Party after the ruling coalition lost the election, officially tendered her resignation mid-Friday to Queen Margrethe II.

Her government now performs a caretaker role before the new government is formed.

Rasmussen can choose either to form a single-party government or try to get one or more parties in blue bloc to form a coalition government.

Though it is anticipated to be difficult and long negotiations as the parties in blue bloc can not agree on everything, Rasmussen has promised transparency to ensure that people can closely follow what happens at the negotiating table.

Thursday's election saw the far-right, euroskeptic Danish People's Party (DPP) overtake Rasmussen's Liberals as Denmark's second largest party in parliament with 21.1 percent of the vote, while the Liberals captured 19.5 percent of the vote and 34 seats, a 7.2 percent decline from the previous election in 2011.

The two parties, together with the Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives that won 13 and 6 seats respectively, comprise the blue bloc.

The DPP's backing of Rasmussen as prime minister has been the determinant factor for the blue bloc to win the 2015 election.

However, political analysts predict that the negotiations between Rasmussen and DPP leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl could be "extremely tough", given that DPP is now bigger than the Liberals and there are many benefits for DPP by staying outside government.

"If the DPP stays outside the government, then it could push the new government very much. Rasmussen knows it, which is why he would really like to have DPP in," Tim Knudsen, a political science professor at University of Copenhagen, was quoted as saying by Danish news agency Ritzau.

It was echoed by Uffe Tang, DR's political editor, who said that "it's not the case that Rasmussen can just run with the well-known Liberal-Conservative government and let the DPP support him."

"The DPP is now significantly bigger than the Liberals, and that provides new challenges for how Rasmussen will put his government together," said Tang.

Despite the fact that the DPP agrees with the Liberals on tighter immigration rules, it opposes the Liberal's plans to cut public spending and wants an annual growth in the public sector of 0.8 percent instead, arguing that more resources are needed in the health care.

Moreover, the now second largest party disagrees with its right-wing allies on EU issues as it views the EU as a threat to national sovereignty, saying that "no EU policies should supersede the Danish constitution."

It also wants to limit Denmark's cooperation with the EU to the areas of trade, environmental policies and technical collaboration.

Throughout the election campaign, the DPP said it would only join a government if it would result in more political influence than merely providing passive support in parliament for a right-wing administration.

"The political influence is not automatic greatest by being a ruling party, as I see it," said Dahl prior to visiting the Queen on Friday, stressing that "a common thread in our line" is crucial for him.

Latest statistics showed that Dahl was the top scorer in the 2015 election, with 57,371 individual votes, followed by Thorning-Schmidt with 42,412 votes.

However, Rasmussen got only 33,393 votes, losing almost half of the votes as compared to that in 2011.

"There is no doubt that Dahl can put a high price to go into government," Knudsen said. Endit