(SBU) LOCAL ELECTIONS YIELD SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

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SUBJECT: (SBU) LOCAL ELECTIONS YIELD SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

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1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Danes went to the polls November 17 to
elect 98 municipal and 5 regional councils. At the broadest
level, the results were a wash, and turnout was down (65.8
percent, versus 69.4 at the 2005 local elections). The
biggest gains in share of the vote went to the opposition
Socialist People's Party (SPP) and the right-wing Danish
People's Party (DPP). Despite obtaining a smaller share of
the vote than last time, the main opposition Social
Democratic Party (SDP) can claim victory, as it emerged with
the most votes, the most mayors, and mayors of all four
biggest cities. (The public elects council members, who then
choose the mayor from among themselves. The SPP's strong
showing helped the SDP - a larger party - win more
mayorships.) The leading government-coalition party Venstre
suffered a small loss in share of the vote, producing a
historically low total of mayors; its results would have been
worse if not for the DPP's improved showing. Venstre's
coalition partner the Conservative People's Party improved
its share of the vote marginally. In general, local
elections are not/not reliable predictors of national
elections. END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) LEFTIST SPP THE BIG WINNER: The Socialist
People's Party (SPP) and its leader Villy Soevndal confirmed
their status as the hottest thing on Denmark's political
scene: the SPP almost doubled its share of the vote since
the last local elections in 2005 (from 7.4 to 14.5 percent).
This helped the leading opposition party SDP increase its
total of mayor positions from 46 to 52, despite a drop of 3.6
percentage points in share of the vote (from 34.3 to 30.7):
the public elected members of councis, who will elect mayors
from among their number Parties quickly negotiated deals at
local level As the SDP remains the largest party at local
evel, it will have the most mayors.


3. (SBU) PP SAVES THE DAY FOR THE RIGHT: The DPP, which
s much more centrist on local issues than nationalones,
increased its share of the vote from 5.9 to8.1 percent.
That did not win it any mayor positions, but saved the day
for the right-of-center. Prime Minister Lars Loekke
Rasmussen's Venstre party, the largest in parliament, lost
2.7 percentage points (from 27.5 to 24.8),but this was less
than predicted. Even so, the result was loss of eight mayor
positions, yielding a historically low total of mayors for
the party. This will inevitably be an issue at Venstre's
annual convention this weekend. The junior partner in
Denmark's governing coalition, the Conservative People's
Party, raised its share of the vote slightly (from 10.3 to
11.0 percent),but lost the mayor's position in the
fourth-largest city, Odense.


4. (SBU) NIGHT OF LONG KNIVES: As expected, the results
indicate that local elections in Denmark are decided
primarily by local issues, personalities and relationships.
Election-night lived up to its traditional nickname "night of
the long knives" as negotiations for mayor and
committee-chair positions produced some odd bedfellows. In a
number of municipalities, the rightist parties joined with
the leftist SPP to gang up against SDP mayors; elsewhere, the
DPP and other rightists fell in behind an SDP candidate. On
the new Greater Copenhagen Regional Council, everybody ganged
up to oust the incumbent chair, who is from the SDP.


5. (SBU) COMMENT: Pundits and partisans will spend the next
several days reading the election results in various ways to
claim victory or call winners and losers in accordance with
their own agendas, but as a rule, local elections in Denmark
are not/not reliable indicators of national elections, and
these seem to be no exception. The SPP's strong showing will
undoubtedly boost optimism within its ranks; it was already
seen as the hottest party in the country. But in the larger
scheme of things, its gains are of limited usefulness as long
as they come largely at the expense of its national ally the
SDP and the seriously-struggling Social Liberal (aka Radical
Left) Party: these three left-of-center parties and the
far-left Red-Green Alliance suffered a combined loss of 0.1
percentage points compared to a net gain of 0.5 percentage
points for the right-of-center Government-DPP alliance - in
other words, at the broadest level these elections were a
wash.
FULTON