The 2011 Danish Election - Summary of the 2011 Danish election campaign

On September 15, 2011 a record-high turn-out of 88 percent of the approx. 4 million Danes eligible to vote for the Danish parliament, the Folketing, was reached. This paper gives a short descriptive summary of the 2011 Danish election campaign. Irrespective of which side would win the position as primeminister, one thing was given: an exceptional era in Danish politics was coming to an end. After ten years of a Right Liberal-Conservative minority government supported by the Danish People's Party, Danish poli-tics would return to its classic modus operandi of centrist parties determining the prime-minister. By a margin of a few thousand votes, the red block won the elections and the new prime minister of Denmark is the Social Democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt. This article describes the political context prior to the election campaign, the course of the election campaign, furthermore it presents the election results in a historical perspective and shortly discusses the challenges the new government is facing.