June 10, 2011
LIKE:
I like that Denmark has so many different political parties from which one can choose. There are at least 8 "main" parties of which 5 are the "big ones"... so people can really choose a party that is aligned with their beliefs on a variety of points.
DISKLIKE:
I dislike that Denmark has so many different political parties from which one can choose. There are at least 8 "main" parties of which 5 are the "big ones"... so newcomers to Denmark have a REALLY HARD time keeping them all straight and understanding who is on the right and who is on the left! Actually it is easier, in my opinion, to remember the party by its "FACE" (the face of the formand that represents it).... They attempted to teach us this in the Danish School, but at that point we were more concerned with knowing where to place our tidsadverbier and stedsadverbier!
See if this Wikipedia Table helps you figure it out!!
Parties represented in the Danish Folketing (Parliament)
Party letter | Party name | Representation as of September 2010 | Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Folketing(parliament) | European Parliament | |||
| V | Venstre Venstre, Danmarks liberale parti (Venstre, Denmark's Liberal Party) | 47 | 3 | Liberal, with conservative liberal policies.[citation needed] Leader: Lars Løkke Rasmussen |
| A | Social DemocratsSocialdemokraterne [1] | 45 | 4 | Left-wing, social democratic. Leader: Helle Thorning-Schmidt |
| O | Danish People's Party Dansk Folkeparti | 24 | 2 | National, populist, conservative. Leader: Pia Kjærsgaard |
| F | Socialist People's PartySocialistisk Folkeparti | 23 | 2 | Left-wing, social democratic and green. Leader: Villy Søvndal |
| C | Conservative People's Party Det Konservative Folkeparti | 16 | 1 | Conservative. Leader: Lars Barfoed |
| B | Danish Social Liberal Party Det Radikale Venstre | 9 | 0 | Social-liberal. Parliamentary group leader: Margrethe Vestager |
| Ø | Red-Green Alliance Enhedslisten | 4 | 0 | Originally an alliance of Communist Party of Denmark Danmarks Kommunistiske Parti, Socialist Workers' Party Socialistisk Arbejderparti and theLeft Socialists Venstresocialisterne. |
| I | Liberal Alliance Liberal Alliance | 3 | 0 | Centre-right, liberal party. Leader: Anders Samuelsen |
2 comments:
Once you've truly internalised the fact that the Radikale Venstre are almost as far right as Venstre, who're significantly to the right of the Konservative then you're finally getting the hang of Danish politics.
One interesting thing is that the Danes at least try to separate fiscal conservatism (Venstre) from social conservatism (Konservative), something we Brits and Yanks have never been able to do successfully because of the straightjacket of a two-party system.
The bad side of the multi-party system is that a party like DF has been able to wield so much influence despite only holding less than 15% of the vote.
I prefer a system whereby the minority of nutters are contained (and constrained) within an established party. It might not be wholly representative, but then neither is this system.
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