Danes voted Thursday in an election that was too close to call, after an intense three-week campaign focused on immigration and the economy.
"I'm asking people to vote for certainty and they know what they get with me. They get a stable economy and they get good welfare," Social Democratic Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said as she arrived outside a Copenhagen polling station with husband Stephen Kinnock, a British Labour MP.
The campaign has been dominated by the economy and the future of the country's cherished cradle-to-grave welfare state, as well as immigration and the rising cost of hosting asylum seekers.
Thorning-Schmidt, in power since 2011, and right-wing opposition leader Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who governed from 2009 to 2011, have both claimed credit for a resurgent economy and tried to woo voters with pledges to curb immigration.
- Wooing undecided voters -
Politicians campaigned until the last minute, with 20 percent of voters undecided and speculation that the outcome of the race could be decided in Denmark's two former colonies, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.
Inside Copenhagen's central station on Thursday morning, party leaders took part in a live TV broadcast, handing out flyers and balloons to selfie-snapping commuters as they stepped off the set.
Among them was the leader of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party (DPP), Kristian Thulesen Dahl, whose party is expected to win around 18 percent of the vote but has yet to say if it would join a future government, should the right-wing bloc win.
"We're just going to be where we get the most influence," he said.
The election campaign has seen Thorning-Schmidt make a comeback in opinion polls, buoyed by an economic recovery and repeated attacks on Rasmussen's plans to freeze public spending.
A weighted average of polls by the daily Berlingske on Wednesday showed the ruling centre-left bloc garnering 49.3 percent of the vote with 50.7 percent for the opposition.
Rasmussen has accused Thorning-Schmidt of negative campaigning and of taking credit for reforms introduced by his administration.
Thorning-Schmidt's approval ratings had been stuck in the doldrums for most of her four-year tenure as the economy dipped in and out of recession and her centre-left coalition implemented policies viewed as right-wing, including welfare cuts and corporate tax reductions.
- String of minor scandals -
But she has rebounded in opinion polls since calling the election three weeks ago as economic growth returned -- expected to reach 1.7 percent this year -- and after taking a tough stance on immigration to win over voters from the DPP.
"In reality it is because Lars Lokke Rasmussen was even more unpopular," said Rune Stubager, a political science professor at Aarhus University.
"It's only relatively speaking that she is popular. Absolutely speaking she isn't very popular," he added, referring to a string of spending and travel scandals that hit Rasmussen's popularity ratings.
Unusually for a Social Democrat, the 48-year-old premier campaigned on the slogan "If you come to Denmark you should work". Her government has also introduced temporary residence permits for refugees, as part of its efforts to stem an influx of asylum seekers.
Denmark received nearly 15,000 asylum seekers last year, almost twice the number it received in 2013, as more people fled conflict and hardship in Africa and the Middle East to Europe.
Rasmussen would need the support of the DPP in parliament to govern and has said he would cut back the number of asylum seekers by slashing benefits for new immigrants and by making it harder to obtain permanent residency.
In the capital's immigrant-heavy neighbourhood of Norrebro, sales assistant Nafees was one of several to cast his vote for the far-left Red Green Alliance, expected to win about eight percent of the vote.
"It's one of the few parties that recognised Palestine as a state... They know what it's like to be and to live here and to be a foreigner," he said.
Danes voted Thursday in an election that was too close to call, after an intense three-week campaign focused on immigration and the economy.
“I’m asking people to vote for certainty and they know what they get with me. They get a stable economy and they get good welfare,” Social Democratic Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said as she arrived outside a Copenhagen polling station with husband Stephen Kinnock, a British Labour MP.
The campaign has been dominated by the economy and the future of the country’s cherished cradle-to-grave welfare state, as well as immigration and the rising cost of hosting asylum seekers.
Thorning-Schmidt, in power since 2011, and right-wing opposition leader Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who governed from 2009 to 2011, have both claimed credit for a resurgent economy and tried to woo voters with pledges to curb immigration.
– Wooing undecided voters –
Politicians campaigned until the last minute, with 20 percent of voters undecided and speculation that the outcome of the race could be decided in Denmark’s two former colonies, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.
Inside Copenhagen’s central station on Thursday morning, party leaders took part in a live TV broadcast, handing out flyers and balloons to selfie-snapping commuters as they stepped off the set.
Among them was the leader of the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party (DPP), Kristian Thulesen Dahl, whose party is expected to win around 18 percent of the vote but has yet to say if it would join a future government, should the right-wing bloc win.
“We’re just going to be where we get the most influence,” he said.
The election campaign has seen Thorning-Schmidt make a comeback in opinion polls, buoyed by an economic recovery and repeated attacks on Rasmussen’s plans to freeze public spending.
A weighted average of polls by the daily Berlingske on Wednesday showed the ruling centre-left bloc garnering 49.3 percent of the vote with 50.7 percent for the opposition.
Rasmussen has accused Thorning-Schmidt of negative campaigning and of taking credit for reforms introduced by his administration.
Thorning-Schmidt’s approval ratings had been stuck in the doldrums for most of her four-year tenure as the economy dipped in and out of recession and her centre-left coalition implemented policies viewed as right-wing, including welfare cuts and corporate tax reductions.
– String of minor scandals –
But she has rebounded in opinion polls since calling the election three weeks ago as economic growth returned — expected to reach 1.7 percent this year — and after taking a tough stance on immigration to win over voters from the DPP.
“In reality it is because Lars Lokke Rasmussen was even more unpopular,” said Rune Stubager, a political science professor at Aarhus University.
“It’s only relatively speaking that she is popular. Absolutely speaking she isn’t very popular,” he added, referring to a string of spending and travel scandals that hit Rasmussen’s popularity ratings.
Unusually for a Social Democrat, the 48-year-old premier campaigned on the slogan “If you come to Denmark you should work”. Her government has also introduced temporary residence permits for refugees, as part of its efforts to stem an influx of asylum seekers.
Denmark received nearly 15,000 asylum seekers last year, almost twice the number it received in 2013, as more people fled conflict and hardship in Africa and the Middle East to Europe.
Rasmussen would need the support of the DPP in parliament to govern and has said he would cut back the number of asylum seekers by slashing benefits for new immigrants and by making it harder to obtain permanent residency.
In the capital’s immigrant-heavy neighbourhood of Norrebro, sales assistant Nafees was one of several to cast his vote for the far-left Red Green Alliance, expected to win about eight percent of the vote.
“It’s one of the few parties that recognised Palestine as a state… They know what it’s like to be and to live here and to be a foreigner,” he said.
