Denmark

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Map of elected representatives of the Red-Green Alliance.

By Jody Betzien, Copenhagen

May 27, 2012 -- Green  Left Weekly -- Red carpet and champagne marked the start of the first Red-Green Alliance (RGA) congress since the party tripled its mandate at a poll in September last year.

The 385 delegates representing the 8000 members packed a basketball stadium in the migrant and working-class Copenhagen suburb of Norrebro to grapple with the party's new increased influence on Danish politics.

Party membership has more than doubled in the past two years, with the party welcoming into its ranks many ex-members of the Social Democratic and Socialist People's parties.

Danes voted in droves in last year's elections to punish the right-wing parties. The poll resulted in the Social Democrats heading a coalition government — and Denmark's first woman prime minister. But this took place on the back of the lowest vote for the Social Democrats since 1906.

There was also a collapse in support for the country's most right-wing parties, including the overtly racist Danish People's Party (DPP). The vote for left parties rose.

The Social Liberals are the most conservative of the four left-of-centre parties supporting the government and the RGA the most radical.

By Ron Ridenour, Copenhagen

Prime Minister-elect Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

By Inger V. Johansen and Line Barfod

September 20, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal --The result of the September 15 parliamentary elections in Denmark means that the right-wing government of the last 10 years has finally been ousted.  A new government will be formed under the leadership of Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the leader of the Social Democrats. The core parties of this government will be the Social Democrats and the Socialist People's Party (SPP), who for some years have formed a close partnership with the aim of strengthening the possibilities for an alternative government.

For the first time a woman will be the prime minister of a Danish government.  For the first time SPP will be in government.

By Rupen Savoulian

June 25, 2011 -- http://rupensavoulian.wordpress.com, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- Since the September 11, 2001, twin tower attacks, there has been renewed interest in the questions of Islam, political Islamism and jihadism. Books have been published by the truckload, seminars bringing together various political scientists and experts have been held, reams of paper analysing the origins and trajectory of political Islam have been published, and the airwaves resonate with talkback from pundits about the impact of Islam and Islamism in the world. How can one make sense of all this? Where does one begin?

Delegates at the Red-Green Alliance annual congress.

By Dick Nichols, Copenhagen

May 29, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- The debate over the Western military intervention into Libya that has swept sections of the world’s left since it began in March were concentrated into one passionate session at the annual congress of Denmark’s Red-Green Alliance (RGA, Enhedslisten), held in Copenhagen over May 20-22.

The 300 delegates, representing 5900 members, were asked by a majority of the RGA’s National Board to endorse the March 18 vote of its four MPs in support of the “no-fly zone” imposed on Libya by NATO powers including Denmark ― acting in the name of United Nations resolution 1973.

The alternative was a National Board minority counter-motion, which stated that “the decision was the most wide-ranging in the history of the RGA, and it was the wrong one”.

[For more left views on Libya, click HERE.]

Resolution by the national leadership of SAP, Danish section of the Fourth International

No to imperialist war in Libya

April 9, 2011 -- The SAP welcomes the decision of the Red-Green Alliance (RGA) leadership and parliamentary group on March 30 to withdraw its support for the Danish government’s participation in the war in Libya. This has created the possibility that the RGA finally can participate in the fight to stop the imperialist war in Libya. The positive element of the new decision unfortunately is hampered by the related statement by the RGA: “The RGA will work to get the operation back on the UN track as soon as possible.” Thus the parliamentary group focuses on a change in goals and methods of the Danish war effort instead of getting it stopped. This uncertainty has already had as result that the RGA did not co-organise or mobilise for the demonstration against the war in Libya today.

Wrong decision

By Kieran Adair

March 23, 2010 -- In Copenhagen, Sydney-based climate justice advocate Natasha Verco, as well as US activist Noah Weiss, faces charges under Denmark’s “terrorism” laws. Verco faces up to 12-and-a-half years' jail for her role in organising protests against the United Nations Copemnhagen climate summit in December.

The two activists appeared in court on March 18 (see report below).

Verco was arrested while riding her bike on December the 13 ahead of a national day of action she was helping organise the following day. She said: “A plainclothed police women jumped out at me and ... took me to an unmarked police van. I asked them, ‘Are you randomly picking me up?’ and they said ‘No, we hunted you’.”