On November 1, the Danes go to the polls. If Mette Frederiksen wins the election and continues as prime minister, she will be the first sitting prime minister to win re-election since 2007. But a number of Danish political commentators have also pointed out that the election is a referendum on Mette Frederiksen’s tenure as prime minister. And not least her political project, which started in earnest seven years ago. In the summer of 2015, the Social Democrats lost the election in Denmark. Helle Thorning-Schmidt (S) handed over the keys to the Prime Minister’s Office to Lars Løkke Rasmussen (V) and left Danish politics. It was a reference to the Danish expression “at stille træskoene”, which is strictly speaking a metaphor for dying. But she was well on her way out of politics anyway. TWO MINISTERS OF STATE: In this photo, Mette Frederiksen (TV.) is 22 years old and Helle Thorning-Schmidt is 32. They ran an election campaign to get Denmark into Eurocooperation, but lost. Later both became prime ministers. Photo: Terje Bendiksby / NTB Her penchant for expensive designer bags, suits and shoes in particular had given her the nickname “Gucci-Helle”. It was not said with a positive sign. Now the party was to be redefined. – Mette Frederiksen and Helle Thorning-Schmidt have always disagreed politically. We saw that when Frederiksen was minister under Thorning-Schmidt. She marked disagreement several times. Primarily internally, but some of it also came out in the public eye, says author and journalist Lars Olsen to news. He has written a number of books about class differences and social democracy in Denmark. He himself is not a member of any party, but humorously he is often referred to as Frederiksen’s “chief ideologue”, because she supposedly follows what he writes and says closely. AUTHOR: Lars Olsen believes Mette Frederiksen has been partially forgiven for the scandals by her voters. And that she has benefited from leading the country through several crises. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news Dialect and mackerel The new leader, or “chairman”, as the Danes still insist on calling their political leaders regardless of gender, was thus found in Mette Frederiksen. With a broad North Jutland dialect. Born in Aalborg into a working-class family. A father who was a trade unionist. Now the stilettos had been replaced. With rubber boots. MAKRELL: The debate about Mette Frederiksen’s possible attempt at a more popular style gained momentum when she posted this picture on Instagram. But can it help her win the election? Photo: Mette Frederiksen / Instagram And on Instagram: Food photos of some of the most Danish food available. Slice of bread with liver pâté. Or mackerel in tomato, mayonnaise and cucumber. Mette Frederiksen had her party name changed slightly – to the Social Democracy. And found Arne Juel, a brewery employee from Fjelstrup. He became a figurehead for promises of a new and improved pension reform. ELECTION POSTER: “Arne” became a term in the election campaign in 2019. Now the pension schemes were to be reformed. Photo: Arbejdermuseet It worked. Frederiksen and the party won the election in 2019. She became prime minister. But this autumn, more specifically on 5 October, the Prime Minister was pushed into a corner. The Radikale Venstre cooperative party demanded: “Print elections.” Otherwise, we will file a lawsuit against you.” And so it was. Frederiksen’s ideology Lars Olsen stands by the bookshelf at home in the apartment in Holbæk on Zealand. Just under an hour’s drive from central Copenhagen. With a view to Holbæk fjord. On the shelf are books such as “Rich children play best”, “Class battle from above”, “Det delte Danmark” and “The disappeared people”. The overarching theme is class differences in Denmark and the role of social democracy in society. RIKE BARN: Lars Olsen with one of the books he has written. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news It also became a starting point for how the new Social Democracy would appear after Frederiksen had taken over. – It happened when Mette Frederiksen took over and a new generation entered the party. You can call them “the young people of forty”. Their project was to orient the party back to the classic core voters in the working class. They pursued a more classic, red, distribution policy. The right to early retirement was secured. They did a lot to decentralize Denmark, he says. Ups and downs The scandals that have characterized Frederiksen’s tenure as prime minister have not been of the insignificant kind. The mink case, where she ordered the illegal killing of all mink in Denmark during the corona pandemic, is one. The fact that she deleted important text messages between herself and the civil service at the same time, earning the nickname “Delete-Mette”, is another. DEAD MINK: Mette Frederiksen ordered the killing of all mink in Denmark for fear of corona infection. She wasn’t allowed to do that, but is she being punished for it by the voters? Photo: Mette Mørk / Ritzau Scanpix / NTB And many are still waiting for answers about what actually happened when the Danish spy chief Lars Findsen was fired. In a book, he has claimed that he had to resign because the government wanted to save itself. Mette Frederiksen has been almost conspicuously silent, but said this to the press a few days ago. – I can completely reject that there should be any form of political persecution in this case. But I hope for an understanding that there are limitations in what you can say about when you are subject to a duty of confidentiality. Disagree about Mette On the other side of the southern Kattegat, in Denmark’s second largest city, Aarhus, we meet the young students Tobias Christensen and Sigrid Langgaard. They are not in complete agreement, neither politically nor on whether Frederiksen deserves the voter’s punishment for the scandals. CRITICAL: Tobias Christensen in Aarhus Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news – I have to say that I’m already quite bourgeois, so I wasn’t going to vote for her anyway. But at least it hasn’t made me any closer to voting for her, says Tobias, while Sigrid is more forgiving. FORGIVE: Sigrid Langgaard in Aarhus Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news – Politics is such a big system that it would be a bit wrong to hold one person responsible for what has happened, she believes. The people’s forgiveness Precisely forgiveness is a key word for Rune Stubager, who is a professor at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University. Because even though there was a dip in the opinion polls for Frederiksen when the report established that the culling of mink in 2020 was illegal, it seems as if the voters have now forgotten that. – Now that the reports are a few months behind the times and we have had an economic crisis, the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the sabotage of the gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, the Social Democrats have seized that opportunity. They have reversed the criticism they have received that they are too powerful to say: “Rather powerful than powerless”, explains the professor. Cheap and easy Mette Frederiksen has managed what her predecessor did not succeed as well, says Lars Olsen: Getting the classic social democratic voters back to the party. – Frederiksen has his background in the working class and in the social democratic tradition. The story of the “little Northern Jutland girl” fits, but it is also staged. Like when she ate a slice of bread with mackerel and posted small clips on social media, he says. ONE MORE: A slightly more luxurious version of Mackerel in tomato that Mette Frederiksen also posted on Instagram. Photo: Mette Frederiksen’s Instagram Mackerel in tomato is a simple, typical meal that most Danes can recognize. It’s cheap. Relatively healthy and quite typically Danish (and in and of itself also Norwegian). – It has worked for some voters, but it has also led to some people thinking she went a little too far. Then we also see that she is now trying to create a wider appeal where she now also discusses societal challenges with other leaders of society, for example in a podcast. But the very idealistic rhetoric from the last election campaign has also been replaced with more talk of broad settlements and cooperation, Olsen explains. Then the election will show whether the mackerel helps to win. Whether Mette Frederiksens can become Denmark’s new country mother. Or a prime minister who was voted out after three and a half years of scandals.
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Can Mette Frederiksen get help with a slice of bread with mackerel in tomato? – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
