Danish politics for the brainy

Today Thursday is election day and you, like most of our readers, may not even be able to vote. But this is not to say that you shouldn’t be passionately interested in the Danish election, which for the first time in decades has really divided the voting populace.

In our Danish Politics for Dummies here we already looked at some of the more ludicrous antics of politicians in the Danish parties’ campaigns, now it is about time we got down to some serious business. Let us look into their positions on taxes, welfare, immigration and more.

But before going through the various topics, let us remind you about which parties are taking part in the elections:

Who is who?

On the left side, starting from the left wing, we have the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten), the Socialist People’s Party (Socialistisk Folkeparti), the Social Democrats and the Social Liberal Party (Radikale).

On the right, starting from the right wing, we have the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti), the Conservative Party (Konservative), Liberal Party (Venstre), the Liberal Alliance and the Christian Democrats (Kristendemokraterne).

Have we already lost you? Check out our Danish politics for dummies here.

Good news for researchers

The good news for researchers in this election is that with the exception of the nationalist Danish People’s Party, all the parties want to extend residence permit rights for people with a higher-educated profile.

Refugee asylum rules should be relaxed, according to the Social Liberal Party, the Red-Green Alliance and the Christian Democrats.

For all the other parties, with the glaring exception of the Danish People’s Party that wants them even more strict, the refugee asylum rules should remain unchanged.

Car fares and bus tickets

All left-wing parties, plus the Christian Democrats and the Conservative Party, promise, if elected, to use public money to lower public transport fares.

Most controversial in this election campaign: The Christian Democrats, together with all the left-of-centre parties, want to introduce a congestion charge on cars entering Copenhagen.

All left-of-centre parties want to introduce a law so that all stock-exchange listed companies must have a certain percentage of women on their board of executives.

Property taxes and welfare

Property taxes (houses) should be increased. So say the Red-Green alliance and Social Liberals. The remaining parties think it should be lowered or cancelled.

All parties to the right of centre, with the exception of the Christian Democrats, support an increase in the deductions for those citizens who decide to use private health insurance. Parties to the left of centre disagree and think that deductions should be lowered.

If elected, all the parties would lower fees for the use of health services, with the exception of the Liberal Alliance.

Follow the action

So that is it, the most important issues, that have been debated over the last few weeks.

Tonight is the night. Voting officially ends at 20.00, but the winner should become apparent about an hour before when the first exit polls are released. By 22.00-22.30 nearly all votes should have been tallied and the speculation about who’ll be part of the new coalition will start.

Follow live election updates this evening at our media partner Seven59, and on the University Post facebook page.

Uni-avis@adm.ku.dk

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