Denmark faces its weakest government in four decades after talks to form a rightwing coalition finally collapsed on Friday night and the Liberals pledged to govern alone, even though they took less than 20% at last week’s general election.



The failure of the right to reach agreement presents the Liberals with a stark choice: to rely on the centre-left Social Democrats, the biggest party in parliament, to push through legislation or, more likely, to lean on the anti-immigrant Danish People’s party, the country’s second largest force, which has succeeded in the past 15 years in shifting Danish politics markedly to the right.

After a meeting of the four rightwing party bosses on Friday night, Liberal leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen told journalists: “It is my assessment after the evening’s discussion that it will be possible to form a Liberal government under my leadership, which will enjoy support in parliament.”

Rasmussen, a former prime minister, has only 34 seats out of 179 in Denmark’s parliament, so will depend on winning the support of at least 56 other MPs in order to pass any legislation.



“I am very aware that a pure Liberal government is not just a minority government, but a very small minority government,” said Rasmussen.

Denmark has a history of minority coalition governments – the defeated centre-left administration of prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt depended frequently on Liberal support over the past four years. However, itis be more than four decades since a cabinet had fewer seats,: Liberal leader Poul Hartling held office from 1973-75 with only 22 but his administration lasted just 14 months.

Thorning-Schmidt’s Social Democrats won last week’s elections and took 47 seats on a higher proportion of the vote, but her coalition partners suffered badly and she quit as party leader on election night.

The main election winner was the populist DPP, which became Denmark’s second largest party with more than 21% of the vote. But despite attempts by the Liberals to coax him into a coalition, DPP leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl has opted to wield the party’s influence from the sidelines and prop up the Liberals on a vote-by-vote basis.

Dahl’s calculation is that this will enable the DPP to remain untainted by unpopular decisions. The far-right Progress party in Norway has seen its popularity slump since it joined a coalition with the Conservatives in 2013.

Anders Samuelsen, Liberal Alliance party leader, said he expected the Liberals had “the most ambitious expectations for cuts in marginal tax rates in Denmark’s history”. The Liberal Alliance has campaigned to scrap the top rate of tax while the DPP has called for rising welfare spending on the elderly and the unemployed.

Rasmussen, 51, said he would inform Denmark’s queen of his decision on Saturday and present his cabinet on Sunday.



Even with the support of all the rightwing parties, the Liberals will have the slimmest of majorities in parliament – just one vote – at a time when Denmark’s economic recovery is still tentative . The currency has come under pressure and the central bank has embarked on a radical experiment with negative interest rates.

“The DPP in many cases can seek cooperation with the Social Democrats and perhaps even the left,” said Jens Ringberg, a political analyst for Denmark’s national broadcaster. “Dahl says he considers himself to be half red and half blue. It makes life difficult for Rasmussen as prime minister, but not necessarily impossible.”

While the DPP has pushed to the reintroduction of strict border controls to prevent movement of migrants, Rasmussen pledged on Friday to maintain Denmark’s status as a member of the Schengen group of nations which has no internal borders.

“It is very likely that an election will be called before the four-year period is over,” Martin Larsen, a political commentator from Copenhagen university, told Reuters. “On average, one-party governments sit for two-and-a-half years.”