Sadly, I won’t be able to participate in our local elections this time around. You may vote in the local elections here in Denmark, if:
- you are at least 18 years old
- you are a citizen
- or are a citizen of an EU member state
- or a citizen of Iceland or Norway
- or have legally resided in Denmark for at least 3 consecutive years
Because I now hold a US passport, I don’t qualify! 😦 But it doesn’t mean I’m not educating the hell out of myself about Danish politics!
In a previous post, I listed a number of parties running in the local elections. Well, brace yourself, because here comes the full list (without a write up this time, because I predict it will take me about three years to actually look all of them up) of parties running for office in Copenhagen elections (the ones in bold were covered in my previous post):
- A – Social Democrats
- B – Radicale
- C – Conservative People’s Party
- D – New Citizenship
- E – Christiania-Listen
- F – Socialist People’s Party
- G – Love Party
- H – A Dead Horse Party
- I – Liberal Alliance
- J – The Cannabis Party
- K – Christian Democrats
- L – Lower Taxes
- N – National Party
- O – Danish People’s Party
- P – Strong Course
- Q – Feminist Initiative
- R – Communists
- T – Schiller Institute Friends
- U – Sunshine Party
- V – Venstre
- Y – The Silent Majority
- Z – The Mythical Creature
- Æ – Lazy Robert
- Ø – Enhedslisten
- Å – The Alternative
It’s good to have choices, but some of these parties sound downright silly… Lazy Robert? Mythical Creature (they also go by the name Lifetime President)? Christian Democrats?
The only party I did not mention in my post, but which deserves a mention is Enhedslisten, formerly known as the Red-Green Alliance. They are actually a strong, left-wing party with many seats in the Parliament and on the City Council. The reason why I did not mention them is because of their election posters! They do not have pictures of any candidates on their posters, just a simple red or green letter Ø. I actually thought it was just a placeholder on posts saying that you shouldn’t post there. I mean, it was an easy enough mistake to make! That letter does look a lot like a ‘do not enter’ sign…
Well, I’m excited to find out the election results. Currently, in Copenhagen, 35 of the 55 seats on the city council are held by leftist parties, mainly Social Democrats, Enhedslisten and Socialist People’s Party. In the municipality where I live (just north of Copenhagen proper), Lyngby, out of 21 seats 8 are held by left-wing parties. Apparently, a lot of business interests in Lyngby and therefore quite a few of Venstre and Liberal Alliance supporters (both quite comparable to US Democrats, but since moving to Denmark I’ve realized that Democrats are really not a left-wing party at all).
Post-Amerikan 