Denmark is not known for politically active billionaires. Yet when, in February, the Danish Social Democrats, under prime minister Mette Frederiksen, proposed a 0.5 percent annual wealth tax on the country’s richest 1 percent, the business response was both swift and furious.
Firms poured millions into advertising campaigns ahead of the March 24 general election. Billionaires and CEOs took to the press threatening to leave the country, while all the major employers’ organizations and the largest firms, like Maersk, issued dire warnings of massive job losses and investment slowdown.
The wealth tax proposal was part of the Social Democrats’ attempt at a pivot to the Left, focusing their electoral campaign on economic inequality and other economic justice issues, in order to win back some of the voters lost after four years in a historically unpopular centrist coalition with parts of the Right.This pivot, however, seemed to come too late and lack credibility. On Tuesday, the Frederiksen government was sharply rejected at the polls.
The Social Democrats remained the largest party, but their 21.9 percent vote share marked a historic low for a party that once routinely commanded close to 30 percent. Their coalition partners fared no better: Venstre, the traditionally dominant center-right party with a strong rural base, faced its worst result since the nineteenth century. Collectively, the ruling coalition fell well short of a parliamentary majority. It was the worst loss in seats for any sitting government in over fifty years.
Most of the Social Democrats’ lost support went not to the far right but to the Left. The most significant gains came from the Socialist People’s Party (SF), which secured approximately 12 percent of the vote and twenty seats, ending as the second-largest party in a historically fragmented parliament.
The Red-Green Alliance also saw gains, reaching 7 percent after a campaign focused on economic issues and the cost of living. Together…
Auteur: Rune Møller Stahl
