COPENHAGEN: Denmark’s Social Democrats have lost their more than 100-year hold on Copenhagen in a stunning local election defeat.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s party saw its control of municipalities nearly halved nationwide.
“We lost Copenhagen,” the Social Democrats’ mayoral candidate Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil told reporters.
“I think that’s incredibly unfortunate. But we have to get back up in the saddle,” she added.
The Social Democrats won just 12.7% of votes in Copenhagen, down three percentage points from 2021.
They trailed far behind the Red-Green Alliance’s 22.1% and the Socialist People’s Party’s 17.9%.
Socialist People’s Party leader Sisse Marie Welling will become mayor after negotiations with six other parties.
The Social Democrats had controlled Copenhagen for over a century and held the mayor’s position since 1938.
The party is now expected to control just 26 of Denmark’s 98 municipalities, down from the current 44.
Prime Minister Frederiksen acknowledged her “responsibility” for the election fiasco.
“We were expecting to lose some ground, but it seems that the decline is bigger than we expected, and that is obviously not good,” she said.
This marks the second time since 2022 legislative elections that her party has lost ground.
The Social Democrats came second behind the Socialist People’s Party in the 2024 European elections.
