Denmark's govt wins second term

Danes have given prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen a second four-year term, embracing his government’s pledge to keep immigration in check and taxes, among Europe’s highest, from rising.

Fogh Rasmussen is the first liberal prime minister in the Scandinavian country to win back-to-back terms, and after nearly all the votes were tallied in yesterday’s election, he said: “It’s one thing to win an election, but it’s more difficult to be re-elected.”

As he made his way through a packed crowd of reporters and some 1,000 party members who had gathered in downtown Copenhagen to celebrate the win, Fogh Rasmussen said it had been “a great evening for us tonight”. All around him, supporters chanted “Anders! Anders!”

“It is a strengthened government,” he said.

Opposition leader Mogens Lykketoft earlier conceded defeat, calling the results “bad” for his Social Democrats. He said he would step down as the leader of the party that helped build the Scandinavian country’s vaunted welfare state.

Fogh Rasmussen’s government “had a much stronger impact that we have been able to have”, said Lykketoft, 59, who had helmed the Social Democrats since 2002.

With 99% of the votes tallied by elections officials, the governing bloc – a coalition of Liberals, Conservatives and the anti-immigration Danish Peoples Party – received 54% of the vote and was set to get 95 seats in the 179-seat Folketing, or parliament.

The Social Democratic-led opposition, which had 46% of the vote, was set to get 80 seats. The four remaining seats are allotted evenly between the Faeroe Islands and Greenland, both semi-independent Danish territories.

More than four million Danes were eligible. Turnout was 84%, similar to the 2001 vote. The highest turnout was in 1943 with 89.5%.

Final results and turnout figures are expected today.

Fogh Rasmussen called for early elections in January, banking on the popularity of his government’s push to preserve Denmark’s welfare state, keep immigration under control and prevent taxes, the second highest in Europe, from rising.

The results mirrored polls released ahead of the voting predicted an easy win for the 52-year-old Fogh Rasmussen and his government.

The left-wing Radical Party, an ally of the Social Democrats, was set to get 9.5 % of the votes, up from 5.2 % in 2001 – an increase attributed to the Radical’s high visibility during the campaign.

“This is a huge, huge day for the Radicals,” party leader Marianne Jelved said.

Both blocs’ campaigns focused on how to improve the country’s cradle-to-grave welfare state and controlling immigration, leaving little room for other issues, such as Denmark’s military presence in Iraq.

The sound economy probably helped the government, with this year’s economic growth forecast at 2.4% – about the same as last year. Unemployment, however, has risen steadily to 6.2% after hitting 25-year lows of about 5% in early 2002.