At least as bitter is the loss of majority that Frederiksen previously had with his allies in parliament. According to early projections, the center-left camp has 85 of 179 deputies, the center-right camp around Jakob Ellemann-Jensen’s right-liberal Venstre has 73 deputies; 90 seats would be needed for a majority.
Umbrücke at Folketing
Ellemann-Jensen also lost many votes: the strongest opposition force dropped ten percentage points to 13.5%. The culprit is likely the vote winner and now “kingmaker” Lars Løkke Rasmussen: According to initial projections, former liberal right-wing prime minister Venstre and his newly founded “moderates” won 17 terms or 9, 3% of votes.
The right-wing populist Danish People’s Party (DF), which lost two-thirds of its votes to 2.3%, only managed to stay in parliament. In contrast, the new right-wing populist Denmark Democrats, founded by former politicians from Venstre and DF, immediately won nearly seven percent of the vote. The Liberal Alliance managed to nearly quadruple its share of the vote to nine percent.
In the left camp, the Greens made the biggest gains and, with 9.6% of the vote, became the third strongest force behind the Social Democrats and Right Liberals.