"Fogh" more years...

Photos: Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Opposition Leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

I know you have all been dying to know who won the Danish election and I humbly apologise for the delay in bringing the result to the followers of this blog.. (all two of you!)

Well, the result was close but not that close. The current PM, Anders Fogh Rasmussen (commonly called "Fogh", pronounced "Fow" as in "mow") of Denmark's Venstre Party has secured a third term in office thanks to his minority coalition involving the Conservatives and the Dansk Folkeparti (the Danish People's Party). Amid chants of ‘Fogh more years’, the leader of Venstre claimed outright electoral victory on Tuesday evening over the Social Democrats centre-left party led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

When all the votes cast in the general election were counted, the Venstre-Conservative-Dansk Folkeparti coalition had won a total of 89 seats in the 179-member parliament.

Rasmussen, who has been prime minister since 2001, can now use the support of either the centrist New Alliance party or one of the representatives from the Faeroe Islands to give him the 90 seats required to form a majority and continue for a third term.

Rasmussen’s Liberal Party lost one seat, but as he addressed supporters after the preliminary results had been counted up, he nevertheless called the election result ‘a good day for Denmark, and a good day for the Liberals’.

‘This is historic. It’s the first time a Liberal prime minister has been re-elected to a third term in office.’

The post-election mood of the opposition’s Social Democrats, led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt was a study in contrasts. The party chalked up its worst election result since 1906, and party leader Thorning-Schmidt was forced to acknowledge that she could not deliver on her promise that she could beat the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Hard-line union members nevertheless joined young professionals to cheer on Thorning-Schmidt as she acknowledged defeat, but pledged to carry on the fight.

‘I promised you that I could beat Fogh,’ Thorning-Schmidt told the crowd. ‘It unfortunately didn’t happen this time. But, my friends, I want to keep my promise. We’ll do it next time.’

Helle is the daughter-in-law of former UK Labour leader, Neil Kinnock having married Stephen Kinnock, son of Neil and is something of a sex symbol, as shown by the photo below (not genuine, I think....)! :-)